Ever wish you hold shooting matches in the house?
Here’s the “Best Christmas Present Ever!”
Just attach your Maxim Silencer, set up your Bullet Stop Sand Box and blast away.
No, this is not a parody from The Onion. In fact, TIME Magazine profiled its inventor in 1932.
While mental hygienists, efficiency experts and city officials have been bewailing the maddening effects of city noise, Hiram Percy Maxim has been manufacturing noise mufflers at Hartford, Conn. Last week he announced that his Maxim Silencer Co., of which he is president and his only son Hiram Hamilton is chief engineer and whose factory is in Asylum Street, Hartford, will—besides continuing to make silencers for guns, motor exhausts, safety valves, air releases, in fact every kind of pipe which emits a gas—offer a consulting service in noise abatement. Chief abater will be "Dr. Shush," the Maxim trademark character. ~ "Noise's Bogeyman" TIME January 4, 1932
Putting aside the absurdity of the ad …. Hiram Percy Maxim was a prolific and successful inventor, plus a writer and a radio pioneer. He even patented an electric car in 1897.
He was born in 1869 in Brooklyn, New York, and was the son of Sir Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the Maxim machine gun. He graduated from MIT at the age of 16 and worked as a mechanical and electrical engineer. (It was just a two year program, but still … smart kid.)
Engineer, scientist, inventor, and hobbyist Hiram Percy Maxim earned patents for his inventions in electric automotive design, noise abatement, and other fields. Also a passionate hobbyist, he left his mark on early aviation and wireless radio.
He wrote the book Life's Place in the Cosmos, published in 1933, an overview of contemporary science that surmised life existed outside of earth; as well as two books published in 1936: A Genius in the Family an amusing account of his youth, and Horseless Carriage Days wherein he recounted his days as an automobile pioneer.
A Genius in the Family was adapted in 1946 into a comedy-drama film produced by Universal Pictures titled, So Goes My Love. Maxim is played by Don Ameche and his wife is played by Myrna Loy.
Incredible Peter - another great share and to go off on a tangent my favourite brown ale is 'Double Maxim'. The original beer, Maxim Ale, was first produced in 1901 to celebrate the safe return from the Boer War of a member of the Vaux brewing family. During that war he had commanded Maxim guns in the 5th Imperial Yeomanry.
The 'Double' which is now part of the name comes from the doubling of the strength of the original beer in 1938 (it was subsequently reduced again but the name left the same)
Can't be many other beers named after a machine gun!
Ha! I'd hate to be in the neighboring apartment to these guys, especially if the walls were thin!