Wheel Man

Robert M. Keating, Pioneer of Bicycles, Motorcycles and Automobiles

R.K. Keating (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

404 Seiten

2014
McFarland & Co Inc (Verlag)
978-0-7864-7970-2 (ISBN)

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Robert M. Keating's story is America's story. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1862 to poor Irish immigrants, he was just 13 when his father died suddenly. A precocious boy with a knack for mechanics, Keating filed his first patent at 22, started his own bicycle company at 28, and at 32 was producing one of the most innovative bicycle lines in the world in a state-of-the-art factory.

Along the way he flirted with baseball, briefly playing in the major leagues and patenting the game's rubberized home plate. In early 1901 Keating developed and marketed a ground-breaking motorcycle before either Indian or Harley-Davidson, and later successfully sued both companies for patent infringement. His company also manufactured automobiles beginning in 1898, producing both electric and gasoline powered vehicles. At the time of his death at 59, Keating held 49 patents--everything from bicycle and motorcycle designs to lunch-chairs to a modern flushing device for toilets.

This book tells the story of Keating and his Keating Wheel Company, a Gilded Age story of unbridled inventiveness that encapsulates America's transformation into a society that would forever move on wheels.

After a long career developing workforce and economic development policy, R.K. Keating now lives in New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Prologue: What Hibernicus Heard

Part I. Beginnings

1. Wild Irish Roots

2. The Making of an Engineer

3. Keating Plays Ball

4. A First for the Whip City

Part II. Holyoke

5. Marciene Whitcomb and the Keating Bicycle Factory

6. There’s a New Wheel in Town

7. “See That Curve?”

8. Charles Dexter Rood

9. Keating Joins the Show

10. From a Fad to a Boom

11. Notions of a Horseless Age

Part III. Middletown

12. Ends and Beginnings

13. A Factory like No Other

14. “365 Days Ahead of Them All”

15. Best-Laid Plans

16. The Saddle King

17. The Governor

18. Tactics and Flanking Maneuvers

19. Changes in the Wind

Part IV. Motors and Mayhem

20. Keeping Pace

21. The Royal Blue Express

22. Matters of Trust

23. A Trust That Matters

24. Apple Green, Trimmed in Black

25. Keating Spins His Wheels

Part V. Collapse

26. Garford Makes Demands

27. Going for the Jugular

28. The Receiver

29. Exit Strategy

30. Milestones and Millstones

Part VI. What Might Have Been

31. From Schemes to Dreams

32. Claims and Counter Claims

33. The Motorcycle City

34. Forward and Reverse

35. Second Chances

36. The Light Fades

37. The Curtain Comes Down in Middletown

Part VII. Return to Springfield

38. Dark Days

39. Reboot

40. Taking On the Big Boys

41. The Bottom of the Ninth

42. Requiem

Epilogue

Afterword

Appendices

A: The Keating Wheel Company Officers and Members of the Board of Directors

B: Robert M. Keating’s Patents, 1884–1920

C: The Only Original 1901 Keating Motorcycle Known to Exist

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Zusatzinfo	58 photos and illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Verlagsort	Jefferson, NC
Sprache	englisch
Maße	178 x 254 mm
Gewicht	694 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe
ISBN-10	0-7864-7970-1 / 0786479701
ISBN-13	978-0-7864-7970-2 / 9780786479702
Zustand	Neuware