Early Years
He was the son of Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, inventor of the Maxim Machine gun. In addition, he was the nephew of Hudson Maxim, an inventor of explosives and ballistic propellants. He had two sisters, Florence Maxim, who married George Albert Cutter, and Adelaide Maxim, who married Eldon Joubert, Ignace Paderewski's piano tuner. Hiram was a mechanical engineering graduate, class of 1886, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (then a two-year course).
Maxim tinkered with internal combustion engines before contacting the Pope Manufacturing Company about the possibility of manufacturing a gasoline-powered automobile. Albert Augustus Pope hired Maxim to run his Motor Vehicle Division. In 1899, with Maxim at the controls, the Pope Columbia, a gasoline-powered automobile, won the first closed-circuit automobile race in the US at Branford, Connecticut. Columbia continued to produce gasoline cars until 1913, and was also a major manufacturer of early electric automobiles and trucks.
Read more about this topic: Hiram Percy Maxim
Famous quotes related to early years:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)