Америкалық автор және ойлап табушы Аманда Джонс

American author and inventor

Amanda Theodosia Jones (October 19, 1835 – March 31, 1914) was an American author and inventor, most noted for inventing a vacuum method of canning called the Jones Process. Jones was descended from Puritan, Huguenot, Quaker and Methodist ancestors. Her forefathers were among the patriots of the American Revolution. She wrote a number of war poems during the Civil War. These were published, with others, in book form. Ill health for a number of years made it impossible for her to keep up her literary work. Some of her poems appeared in Scribner's Magazine while others were published in the Century, Our Continent, and other journals. She published a volume of verse entitled A Prairie Idyl and Other Poems. She made her home in Chicago, Illinois.

Jones was born in East Bloomfield, New York, on October 19, 1835, the fourth child of Henry and Mary Alma (Mott) Jones. She attended district schools in East Bloomfield and Black Rock, New York; she completed normal school training at the East Aurora Academy in New York and began teaching at the age of fifteen. In 1859, she contracted tuberculosis and spent over a year and a half recovering from the illness. Although she overcame the primary phase of the illness, Jones never fully recovered and would undergo spa treatments and alternative medicine practices to deal with the long term difficulties.

Influenced by the writings of Thomas Dick and the spiritualism movement, Jones became a convert to spiritualism in 1854 and believed herself to be a medium. In 1869, believing that the spirits wanted her there, she moved to Chicago, where she wrote for a number of periodicals, including Western Rural, Universe, Interior, and Bright Sides.

While working as an editor in Chicago, Jones allegedly befriended a doctor by the name of Johnathon Andrews. He often was known as an advocate and practitioner of unorthodox healing methods on the basis that “love transcended death”. Jones, with her interest and background in spirituality, was enthusiastic about Andrews’’ views on medicine and enlisted his help in battling her ailments following her bout with tuberculosis. For five years, Andrews allegedly treated Jones using air baths, a treatment where the patient would spend a period of time in a tank full of compressed air. The Jones Method involved steaming sealed jars filled with fruits and vegetables in a light syrup, fruit juice, or water, to an internal temperature of 120०F, forcing the air out of the jar and thus creating an airtight seal which would protect the food from oxygen that fuels the growth of bacteria. Jones’ invention would allow for food to be preserved uncooked, allowing fresh fruits and vegetables to be enjoyed later in the season. Her invention allowed for easier opening, using a glass jar and vacuum sealed lid instead of a seam sealed tin can, and made the act of food preservation more attainable to people at home. On June 3, 1873, Cooley obtained a patent on an apparatus for preserving fruit which he assigned to Jones. On the same day, a second patent was issued to both Cooley and Jones for their process, and two more patents were issued solely to Jones for her improved jar. Again following the advice of the spirits she communicated with, she developed another invention, an oil burner, which she patented in 1880. However, her attempts to establish businesses based on her inventions were unsuccessful, and she returned to writing, publishing A Prairie Idyll in 1882. There is one reference (Stanley, Autumn – See Bibliography) that maintains she has a patent for a Ready Opener Tin Can, but that is the only, unsupported, reference to this patent. Following the invention of the Jones Preserving Process and the sale of the Women’s Canning and Preserving Company, Jones continues inventing, staking claim to the oil burner, several types of valves, and a form of the tin can opener, giving her six patents in total. When this venture failed in 1893, she left Chicago for Junction City, Kansas, where two of her sisters lived. The business saw considerable profits in the first year, attracting investors that expected to see greater profits. A group of investors bought the canning business, with dispute over whether Jones willingly sold the company In 1904 they released a 489 page report which detailed extensively a comparison between coal and oil. Jones was asked to write a technical review of the report for Engineer: With which is Incorporated Steam Engineering. According to her obituary she was paid liberally for her contribution of four articles in 1904 and 1905. THE LIQUID FUEL PROBLEM – II (Vol 41 – 1904 – pages 855–856) She was listed in Who's Who in America for 1912–13 and in Woman's Who's Who in America for 1914–15.

She quit teaching in 1854 after her first poem was published by the Ladies' Repository of Cincinnati. In 1861, she published Ulah, and Other Poems; a second book of verse, Poems, was published in 1867. Her health had been fragile since contracting tuberculosis in 1859; after the publication of Poems, she spent a year recuperating at the home of her widowed mother in Wisconsin.

Between 1855 and 1864 Jones published frequently in the Ladies Repository. These poems, along with one she published in Overland Monthly and Out West magazine in 1894, are available at the University of Michigan's Making of America Journals digital library. "The Death of the Old Year" Volume: 15, Issue: 12, Dec 1855, pp. 736
"The Music of the Soul" Volume: 15, Issue: 11, Nov 1855, pp. 678
"There is a God" Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Apr 1855, pp. 242
"Visions" Volume: 15, Issue: 10, Oct 1855, pp. 616
"Dream Land" Volume: 16, Issue: 8, Aug 1856, pp. 458
"Glen Elgin" Volume: 16, Issue: 7, July 1856, pp. 424
"My Spirit Lute" Volume: 16, Issue: 9, Sept 1856, pp. 544
"The Child – The Maiden – The Mother" Volume: 16, Issue: 3, Mar 1856, pp. 155
"The Kind of the North" Volume: 16, Issue: 4, Apr 1856, pp. 217
"Life's Warfare" Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Jan 1857, pp. 3
"Our Playmates Grave" Volume: 17, Issue: 8, Aug 1857, pp. 453
"Prayer and Praise" Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Feb 1857, pp. 71
"The Silver Chalice" Volume: 17, Issue: 11, Nov 1857, pp. 684
"Trial and Delivery – The Messenger" Volume: 17, Issue: 6, June 1857, pp. 340
"Who Knoweth the Heart" Volume: 17, Issue: 4, Apr 1857, pp. 199
"Hide and Seek" Volume: 18, Issue: 11, Nov 1858, pp. 652
"Locust Leaves" Volume: 18, Issue: 1, Jan 1858, pp. 32
"Peace" Volume: 18, Issue: 5, May 1858, pp. 260
"Spring Winds" Volume: 18, Issue: 4, Apr 1858, pp. 208
"The Flower Language of the Heart" Volume: 18, Issue: 7, July 1858, pp. 410
"The Price of Blood" Volume: 18, Issue: 8, Aug 1858, pp. 476
"The World" Volume: 18, Issue: 11, Nov 1858, pp. 663
"Happy Days" Volume: 19, Issue: 3, Mar 1859, pp. 133
"Heaven" Volume: 19, Issue: 2, Feb 1859, pp. 96
"The Reign of Truth" Volume: 19, Issue: 5, May 1859, pp. 262
"The Tide of Life" Volume: 19, Issue: 6, June 1859, pp. 352
"The Willow Tree" Volume: 19, Issue: 11, Nov 1859, pp. 667
"Charity" Volume: 22, Issue: 1, Jan 1862, pp. 34
"Day and Night" Volume: 22, Issue: 8, Aug 1862, pp. 498
"Les Souvenirs" Volume: 22, Issue: 12, Dec 1862, pp. 739
"The South Wind" Volume: 22, Issue: 10, Oct 1862, pp. 628
"Morta, A Vision of the Fates" Volume: 23, Issue: 3, Mar 1863, pp. 180
"The Harp of Columbia" Volume: 23, Issue: 1, Jan 1863, pp. 36
"The Ministry of Life" Volume: 23, Issue: 2, Feb 1863, pp. 96
"Thou Finder of Flaws" Volume: 23, Issue: 8, Aug 1863, pp. 490
"My Glade" Volume: 24, Issue: 9, Sept 1864, pp. 533
"Hawaii" Overland monthly and Out West magazine. / Volume: 24, Issue: 139, July 1894, pp. 44