science · 29 May 1945 · 79 years ago
In 1945, a two-cycle gas engine was patented by black American inventor F.M. Jones (U.S. No. 2,376,968). His first patent was for a ticket dispensing machine (1939), but in the next twenty years Jones produced numerous inventions to patent related to refrigeration and air conditioning for trucks and railway boxcars with their associated engines, compressors and control devices. He solved the problems for truckers hauling poultry and other perishables troubled by packing ice melting away during a trip. Jones combined a knowledge of shock-proofing and engine building from building racing cars in his youth with a study of refrigeration from library books. Later, he designed all Army and Marine field kitchen refrigeration systems.
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