Biography
Born in Alabama in 1849, Andrew Beard spent the first fifteen years of his life as a slave on a small farm in Alabama. A year after he was emancipated, he married and became a farmer in a small city outside of Birmingham. While in Birmingham, he was able to develop and champion his first invention, a plow. Three years later, he patented a second plow. These two inventions earned him almost $10,000, with which he began to invest in real estate.
Following his stint in real-estate, Andrew Beard began to work with and study engines. In 1892, he filed a patent for an improvement to the rotary steam engine.
Andrew Beard invented the JENNY coupler for railroad cars not to be mistaken with the JANNEY coupler which he is sometimes falsely cited as the inventor of the automatic railroad coupler, also known as the knuckle coupler, but this was invented by Eli H. Janney, a former Confederate Major who was awarded a patent for his revolutionary invention in 1873.U.S. Patent 138,405 Beard's patent relating to the automatic coupler was one of some 8,000 variant patents awarded between Janney's invention in 1873 and the turn of the 20th century.
Little is known about the period of time from Beard's last patent application in 1897 up until his death. He died in 1921.
Read more about this topic: Andrew Jackson Beard
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)