Thomas Midgley Jr.

Thomas Midgley Jr. (May 18, 1889 – November 2, 1944) was an American mechanical and chemical engineer. He played a major role in developing leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known in the United States by the brand name Freon; both products were later banned from common use due to their harmful impact on human health and the environment. He was granted more than 100 patents over the course of his career. Midgley contracted polio in 1940 and was left disabled; in 1944, he was found strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted. It was reported to the public that he had been accidentally killed by his own invention, but his death was privately declared a suicide. His legacy is one of negative environmental impact; environmental historian J. R. McNeill stated that he "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", author Bill Bryson remarked that he possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny", and science writer Fred Pearce described him as a "one-man environmental disaster". Thomas Midgley Jr. was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, on May 18, 1889, the son of Hattie Louise (née Emerson) (1865 – 1950) and Thomas Midgley Sr. (1840 – 1934). His family had a history of inventing; his father was an inventor in the field of automobile tires while his maternal grandfather, James Emerson, invented the inserted tooth saw. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Cornell University in 1911 with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1916, Midgley began working at General Motors. In December 1921, while working under the direction of Charles Kettering at Dayton Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of General Motors, he discovered (after discarding tellurium due to the difficult-to-eradicate smell) that the addition of tetraethyllead (TEL) to gasoline prevented knocking in internal combustion engines. The company named the substance "Ethyl", avoiding all mention of lead in reports and advertising.