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Biography of Ransom E. OldsName: Ransom E. OldsBirth Date: June 3, 1864 Death Date: August 26, 1950 Place of Birth: Geneva, Ohio, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: businessman, entrepreneur Ransom E. Olds Ransom E. Olds (1864-1950) was an automotive industry pioneer whose company developed, manufactured, and sold one of the first affordable cars in mass production in the United States. His 0 "runabout," popular in the early 1900s, came about partly as a result of his experiments with perfecting a gasoline-burning engine at his family's machine shop. Though Olds was only active during the automobile industry's formative years, the influence he exerted on others--both colleagues and competitors--as well as the numerous patents granted to this gifted inventor marked him as one of the field's most important founders.Ransom Eli Olds, whose ancestry stretched back to Puritan-era New England, was born in Geneva, Ohio, on June 3, 1864. His father, Pliny Fisk Olds, was at various times a blacksmith, manager of an ironworks facility, farmer, and pattern maker before moving to Lansing, Michigan, and opening a machine shop when "Ranny," the fourth of his sons, …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…car or supplier firms (Roy Chapin and the Hudson Motor Company was one), two others who made sheet metal for him founded a company that was eventually subsumed into Chrysler, and his engine-maker, Henry Leland, would go on to co-found the Cadillac nameplate; Olds also worked with the Dodge Brothers in Detroit and, according to May, proved to Henry Ford "that there was money to be made in producing a low-priced car." Further Reading Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: The Automobile Industry, 1896-1920, edited by George S. May, Bruccoli Clark Layman/Facts on File, 1990.Fucini, Joseph J., and Suzy Fucini, Entrepreneurs: The Men and Women behind Famous Brand Names and How They Made It, G. K. Hall, 1985.May, George S., R. E. Olds: Auto Industry Pioneer, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977.Niemeyer, Glenn A., The Automotive Career of Ransom E. Olds, MSU Business Studies, 1963.Raleigh News & Observer, September 21, 1997. |