The Life of Charles F. Brush, Sr.

Today, Brush Wellman Inc. is the world’s only fully-integrated supplier of beryllium products and high-technology materials. Our company has a rich and unique history, and it all started with the inventive genius of the founder, Mr. Charles F. Brush, Sr.

Brush Wellman was founded as Brush Laboratories in 1921 with the financial assistance of Charles F. Brush, Sr. He was born March 17, 1849 on a farm in what is today the city of Euclid, Ohio. He attended Cleveland public schools and graduated with high honors in 1867. Among many earned and honorary degrees, he received both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. from Western Reserve University. While still in high school, Charles Brush first experimented with storage batteries and static electric machines, and invented a simple arc light and dynamo.

Although the arc light had been known since 1810, Brush’s was the first to be perfected for commercial use. His new dynamo produced a high-tension current adaptable to commercial purposes and essential for arc lighting in series. Thus, the age of electricity and electric lighting was born and both the arc light and dynamo were patented in 1878.

His experiments with electrical arc lighting continued, and in April of 1879, while Thomas Edison was still struggling with his own incandescent globe, Brush was ready to go public with his invention. The Cleveland Telegraph Supply Co., with which Brush was associated, was contracted to erect twelve of the new arc lights atop 150-foot poles around Cleveland’s Public Square.

Timeline: 1849 - 1929

1849 Charles F. Brush Sr. is born on March 17th in Euclid, Ohio. 1867 C.F. Brush Sr. graduates High School (High Honors). 1875 C.F. Brush Sr. marries Mary Morris on October 6th. 1878 C.F. Brush patents the Arc light and Dynamo. 1879 Cleveland becomes first city to light streets with electricity on April 29th. 1881 Brush Electric Co. founded. 1886 C.F. Brush Sr. patents the storage battery. 1891 Governor of France decorates C.F. Brush Sr. Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. 1899 Academy of Arts and Science awards C.F. Brush Sr. the Rumford Metal. 1922 C.F. Brush Sr. proves that ratio of weight is not the same for all kinds of matter. 1929 C.F. Brush Sr. dies of pneumonia on June 15th.

Our company has a rich and unique history, and it all started with the inventive genius and founder, Mr. Charles F. Brush Sr.

Word of the experiment spread as thousands gathered from Cleveland and all over Ohio and Pennsylvania to see the 30-year-old Brush and his invention. Many of the spectators, forewarned by the newspapers of the “blinding glare” that might be expected, carried smoked glass to cover their eyes. Then at 8:05 in the evening of April 29, 1879, the switch was thrown and within moments, the entire square was bathed in a bluish-white light. Loud applause was followed by bands playing and horses rearing, and at that moment the City of Cleveland became the first in the world to light its streets with electricity. Within six months, Cleveland City Council contracted for “Brush lights”, as they soon became known, to be installed not only in Public Square, but all major adjacent streets as well. In 1881, he founded the Brush Electric Company, and by 1882 his lamps had spread throughout America and Europe.

In addition to the arc lamp and dynamo, Brush also made other contributions to the newly established electrical industry, one being the fundamental storage battery he had patented in 1886. Charles Brush’s early inventions were thoroughly practical, though they were based entirely on his own brilliant theories. He would formulate a principle and make detailed, scaled drawings from which working models could be made. Doing most of the more complicated work himself, the first model was usually perfect.

In 1889 the Brush Electric Company was combined with the Thomson-Houston Company and these two organizations consolidated with the Edison Electric Company to form the General Electric Company in 1891.

About this time, Brush retired from the electric lighting field and went into other business ventures. He became interested in the inventions of Dr. Carol Linde, who extracted oxygen from liquid air and became founder of the Linde Air Products Company in 1905.

Mr. Brush aided in the formation of the Sandusky Portland Cement Company and was president of both the Cleveland Arcade Company and the Euclid Avenue National Bank.

With all his business and scientific activities, Mr. Brush also found time to assume cultural and civic responsibilities in Cleveland. He was a life member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, a director of the Cleveland School of Art, and an honorary president of the Cleveland Vocal Society. He held trusteeships with Adelbert College, Western Reserve University and University School. He was a benefactor of numerous charities and a warden of his church, Trinity Protestant Episcopal.

In his later years he carried on painstaking experiments which may cause his name to be linked with complex theories of physics. In 1922 and 1923, with extremely refined apparatus of his own design, he demonstrated that certain kinds of matter, when allowed to fall freely under the influence of gravitation, fell faster than others under identical conditions. Thus he proved that the ratio of mass-to-weight was not the same for all kinds of matter, as had been previously supposed.

Charles Brush’s achievements received recognition in this country as well as abroad. For his discoveries in electricity, he was decorated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the Government of France in 1881. In 1899, he was awarded the Rumford Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for the practical development of electric arc lighting, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers awarded him the Edison Medal in 1913. In 1928 he received the Franklin Medal by the Franklin Institute for the pioneer development of the arc light and practical storage battery, as well as the Cleveland Medal for public service.

Charles F. Brush married Mary Morris on October 6, 1875 and had two children, Charles Francis and Edna Helene. His son and grandson were to become very instrumental in the chain of events that occurred to put the “Brush” in Brush Wellman today.

It has been said that Charles Francis Brush never had the haggard, care-worn appearance supposedly typical of an inventive genius. He stood over six feet tall, had broad shoulders and chest, clear eyes and an open countenance. Until his last brief bout with pneumonia, which took his life on June 15, 1929, Brush went to his office daily and continued his experiments in the basement laboratory of his Euclid home. At 80 years old, he was the owner of more than 50 patents. His inventive genius and broad contributions to society reached far beyond the impact that today is directly experienced at Brush Wellman.