Поуэл Крослі: Өмірбаяны мен жетістіктері

American businessman (1886–1961)

Powel Crosley Jr. (September 18, 1886 – March 28, 1961) was an American inventor, industrialist, and entrepreneur. He was also a pioneer in radio broadcasting, and owner of the Cincinnati Reds major league baseball team. In addition, Crosley's companies manufactured Crosley automobiles and radios, and operated WLW radio station. Crosley, once dubbed "The Henry Ford of Radio," was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2010 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2013. He and his brother, Lewis M. Crosley, were responsible for many firsts in consumer products and broadcasting. During World War II, Crosley's facilities produced more proximity fuzes than any other U. S. manufacturer, and made several production design innovations. Crosley Field, a stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, was renamed for him, and the street level main entrance to Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati is named Crosley Terrace in his honor. Crosley's Pinecroft estate home in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Seagate, his former winter retreat in Sarasota, Florida are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Powel Crosley Jr. was born on September 18, 1886, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Charlotte Wooley (Utz) (1864–1949) and Powel Crosley Sr. (1849–1932), a lawyer. Powel Jr. was the oldest of the family's four children. Crosley became interested in the mechanics of automobiles at a young age and wanted to become an automaker. While living with his family in College Hill, a suburb of Cincinnati, twelve year old Crosley made his first attempt at building a vehicle. Crosley began high school in College Hill and transferred to the Ohio Military Institute. In 1904 Crosley enrolled at the University of Cincinnati, where he began studies in engineering, but switched to law, primarily to satisfy his father, before dropping out of college in 1906 after two years of study. Crosley married Eva Emily Brokaw (1912–1955) in 1952. She died in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Crosley's primary residence was Pinecroft, an estate home built in 1929 in the Mount Airy section of Cincinnati, Ohio. He also had Seagate, a winter retreat in Manatee County, Florida, built for his first wife, Gwendolyn. In addition, Crosley owned several vacation properties.

Pinecroft, Crosley's two story, , Tudor Revival style mansion and other buildings on his estate in Mount Airy was designed by New York based architect Dwight James Baum and built in 1928–29. Crosley's daughter, Marth Page (Crosley) Kess, sold the property after her father's death in 1961, and the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor acquired the property in 1963. Saint Francis Hospital bought a portion of the property north of the Crosley mansion in 1971 and built a hospital, which was renamed Mercy Hospitals West in 2001. The land surrounding the home has been subdivided into parcels, but the Franciscan Sisters have used the mansion as a retreat since the early 1970s. Pinecroft was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Seagate, also known as the Bay Club, along Sarasota Bay in the southwest corner of Manatee County, Florida, was a Mediterranean Revival style home designed for Crosley by New York City and Sarasota architect George Albree Freeman Jr., with Ivo A. de Minicis, a Tampa, Florida, architect, drafting the plans. Sarasota contractor Paul W. Bergman built the winter retreat in 1929–30 on a parcel of land. The two and a half story house include ten bedrooms and ten bathrooms, as well as auxiliary garages and living quarters for staff. The house contains and is reportedly the first residence built in Florida using steel frame construction to provide protection against fires and hurricanes. After Crosley's wife, Gwendolyn, died of tuberculosis at the retreat in 1939, he rarely used the house. During World War II, Crosley allowed the U. S. Army Air Corps to use the retreat for its airmen training at the nearby Sarasota Army Air Base. Crosley sold his estate property in 1947 to the D and D Corporation. In 1991 the state of Florida purchased the property and of the bay front estate that included the structures that Crosley had built in 1929–30. A larger portion of the original property was developed into a satellite campus for the University of South Florida. The University of South Florida Sarasota Manatee campus opened its new facilities in August 2006. The present day mansion, called the Powel Crosley Estate, is used as a meeting, conference, and event venue.

Crosley, an avid sportsman, also owned several sports, hunting, and fishing camps, including an island retreat called Nikassi on McGregor Bay, Lake Huron, Canada; Bull Island, South Carolina; Pimlico Plantation, along the Cooper River north of Charleston, South Carolina; Sleepy Hollow Farm, a retreat in Jennings County, Indiana and a house at Cat Cays, Bahamas. Still determined to establish himself as an automaker, Crosley moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he worked for Carl G. Fisher as a shop hand at the Fisher Automobile Company. Crosley stayed for about a year, but left after he broke his arm starting a car at the auto dealership. After recovering from his injury at home in College Hill, Crosley returned to Indianapolis in 1909 to briefly work for several auto manufacturers, including jobs as an assistant sales manager for the Parry Auto Company and a salesman for the National Motor Vehicle Company. He also volunteered to help promote National's auto racing team. His next job was selling advertising for Motor Vehicle, an automotive trade journal, but left in 1910 to move to Muncie, Indiana, where he worked in sales for the Inter State Automobile Company and promoted its racing team.

After returning to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1911, Crosley sold and wrote advertisements for local businesses, but continued to pursue his interests in the automobile industry. He
failed in early efforts to manufacture cars for the Hermes Automobile Company and cyclecars for the De Cross Cyclecar Company and the L. Porter Smith and Brothers Company before finding financial success in manufacturing and distributing automobile accessories. In 1916 he co founded the American Automobile Accessory Company with Ira J. Cooper. The company's bestseller was a tire liner of Crosley's invention. In 1920, Crosley first selected independent local dealers as the best way to take his products to market. He insisted that all sellers of his products must give the consumer the best in parts, service, and satisfaction. Always sensitive to consumers, his products were often less expensive than other name brands, but were guaranteed. Crosley's "money back guarantee" set a precedent for some of today's most outstanding sales policies.

In 1921 Crosley's young son asked for a radio, a new item at that time, but Crosley was surprised that toy radios cost more than $100 at a local department store. With the help of a booklet called "The ABC of Radio," he and his son decided to assemble the components and build their own crystal radio set. Crosley immediately recognized the appeal of an inexpensive radio and hired two University of Cincinnati students to help design a low cost set that could be mass produced. Crosley named the radio the "Harko" and introduced it to the market in 1921. The inexpensive radio set sold for $7, making it affordable to the masses. Soon, the Crosley Radio Corporation was manufacturing radio components for the rapidly growing industry and making its own line of radios. By 1924 Crosley had moved his company to a larger plant and later made subsequent expansions. The Crosley Radio Corporation became the largest radio manufacturer in the world in 1925; its slogan, "You’re There With A Crosley," was used in all its advertising. In 1928 Crosley's firm arranged for the construction of the Crosley Building at Camp Washington, a Cincinnati neighborhood, and used the facility for its for radio manufacturing, radio broadcasting, and for manufacturing other devices. In 1930 Crosley was marketing the "Roamio," with "screen grid neutrodyne power speaker" for automotive use. Priced at $75, before accessories and installation, it was claimed to be able to receive thirty stations with no signal strength change. The Crosley Corporation claimed that in 1928 WLW became the first 50 kilowatt commercial station in the United States with a regular broadcasting schedule. In 1934 Crosley put a 500 kilowatt transmitter on the air, making WLW the station with the world's most powerful radio transmitter for the next five years. Among the entertainers who performed live from WLW's studios were Red Skelton, Doris Day, Jane Froman, Fats Waller, Rosemary Clooney, and the Mills Brothers. Crosley also introduced the "Autogym," a motor driven weight loss device with a vibrating belt, and the "Go Bi Bi," a "rideable baby walker," among other products.

In February 1934, Crosley purchased the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team from Sidney Weil, who had lost much of his wealth after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Crosley kept the team from going bankrupt and leaving Cincinnati. He was also owner of the Reds when the team won two National League titles (in 1939 and 1940) and the World Series in 1940. Crosley was also a pioneer in broadcasting baseball games on the radio. On May 24, 1935, the first nighttime game in Major League baseball history was held at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, which was renamed in Crosley's honor after he acquired the team (before this, the ballpark was named Redland Field), between the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies under newly installed electric lighting. With attendance at its evening games more than four times greater that its daytime events, the team's financial position was greatly improved.

The Crosley "Moonbeam" was built in Sharonville, Ohio and was first flown on December 8, 1929. It was designed by Harold D. Hoekstra, an employee of Crosley's when Crosley was president of the Crosley Aircraft Company. (Hoeskstra later became Chief of Engineering and Design for the Federal Aviation Administration.) Unique features of this aircraft are the square tube longerons used in the fuselage construction, use of torque tubes instead of control cable, and the corrugated aluminum ailerons. Original power was supplied by a four cylinder inverted inline 90 hp Crosley engine. At one time it was also tested with a 110 Warner Scarab engine. N147N reportedly was the first airplane on which the spoilers were tested (in May 1930) as a lateral control device. Five Moonbeams airplanes were produced. The first was a three place parasol; next, a four place, high wing cabin model; third and fourth were one place high wings. Due to the Great Depression, planned production did not take place. N147N is the last of these planes in existence. It is housed at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky in Lexington Kentucky. In 1933 Frenchman Henri Mignet designed the HM.14 "Pou du Ciel" ("Flying Flea"). He envisioned a simple aircraft that amateurs could build, and even teach themselves to fly. In an attempt to render the aircraft stall proof and safe for amateur pilots to fly, Mignet staggered the two main wings. The Mignet Crosley "Pou du Ciel" is the first HM.14 made and flown in the United States. Edward Nirmaier, a Crosley employee, and two other men built the airplane in November 1935 for Crosley, who believed that the affordable "Flea" could become a popular aircraft in the United States. After several flights, a crash at the Miami Air Races in December 1935 finally grounded the Crosley HM.14. Although the airplane enjoyed a period of intense popularity in France and England, a series of accidents in 1935 36 permanently ruined the airplane's reputation.

Of all Crosley's dreams, success at building an affordable automobile for Americans was possibly the only major one eventually to elude him. In the years leading up to World War II, Crosley developed new products that included reviving one of his earliest endeavors at automobile design and manufacturing. In 1939, when Crosley introduced the low priced Crosley automobiles, he broke with tradition and sold his cars through independent appliance, hardware, and department stores instead of automobile dealerships. The first Crosley Motors, Inc. automobile made its debut at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on April 28, 1939, to mixed reviews. The new Crosley "CC" model automobile continued the company's pre war tradition of offering small, lightweight, and low priced cars. It sold for $850 and got thirty to fifty miles per U. S. gallon. In 1949 Crosley became the first American carmaker to put disc brakes on all of its models.

Crosley's company was involved in war production planning before December 1941, and like the rest of American industry, it focused on manufacturing war related products during World War II. The company made a variety of products, including proximity fuzes, experimental military vehicles, radio transceivers, and gun turrets, among other items.

The most significant Crosley's wartime production was the proximity fuze, which was manufactured by several companies for the military. Crosley's facilities produced more fuzes than any other manufacturer and made several production design innovations. The fuze is widely considered the third most important product development of the war years, ranking behind the atomic bomb and radar. Ironically, Crosley himself did not have U. S. government security clearance and was not involved with the project. Without government security clearance, Crosley was prohibited from entering the area of his plant that manufactured the fuzes and did not know what top secret products it produced until the war's end. Production was directed and supervised by Lewis M. Clement, the Crosley company's vice president of engineering. James V. Forrestal, U. S. Secretary of the Navy said: "The proximity fuze has helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection this ingenious device has given the surface ships of the Fleet, our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men and ships would have been immeasurably greater." George S. Patton, Commanding General of the Third Army, remarked: "The funny fuze won the Battle of the Bulge for us. I think that when all armies get this shell we will have to devise some new method of warfare."

Inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2010. The street level main entrance to Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati is named Crosley Terrace in his honor.