engineering

George B. Selden

George B. Selden is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand George B. Selden rather than just read about it. In short: George Baldwin Selden (September 14, 1846 – January 17, 1922) was an American patent lawyer and inventor from New York who was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile in 1895. Early life and career In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R.

Key takeaways

George B. Selden belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect George B. Selden to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of George B. Selden from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

George Baldwin Selden (September 14, 1846 – January 17, 1922) was an American patent lawyer and inventor from New York who was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile in 1895.

Early life and career In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney most noted for defending Susan B. Anthony, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester. He dropped out when the American Civil War started, enlisting in the 6th Cavalry Regiment, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who, after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son, managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did finish his course of study and pass the New York bar in 1871. He joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had four children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine. For a time, Selden represented photography pioneer George Eastman in patent matters. He was also based in Rochester.

The Selden patent

He filed for a patent on May 8, 1879 (in a historical convergence of visionary minds, the witness Selden chose was a local bank-teller, George Eastman, later to become famous for the Kodak camera).

In 1899 he sold his patent rights to William C. Whitney, who proposed manufacturing electric-powered taxicabs as the Electric Vehicle Company, EVC, for a royalty of US$15 per car with a minimum annual payment of US$5,000. Whitney and Selden then worked together to collect royalties from other budding automobile manufacturers. He was initially successful, negotiating a 0.75% royalty on all cars sold by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. He began his own car company in Rochester under the name Selden Motor Vehicle Company. However, Henry Ford, owner of the Ford Motor Company, founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1903, and four other car makers resolved to contest the patent infringement suit filed by Selden and EVC. The legal fight lasted eight years, generating a case record of 14,000 pages. Ford's testimony included the comment, "It is perfectly safe to say that George Selden has never advanced the automobile industry in a single particular...and it would perhaps be further advanced than it is now if he had never been born."

The case was heavily publicized in the newspapers of the day, and ended in a victory for Selden. In his decision, the judge wrote that the patent covered any automobile propelled by an engine powered by gasoline vapor. Posting a bond of US$350,000, Ford appealed, and on January 10, 1911, won his case based on an argument that the engine used in automobiles was not based on George Brayton's engine, the Brayton engine which Selden had improved, but on the Otto engine. This stunning defeat, with only one year left to run on the patent, destroyed Selden's income stream. He focused production of his car company on trucks, renaming his company the Selden Truck Sales Corporation. It survived in that form until 1930 when it was purchased by the Bethlehem Motor Truck Corporation. Selden suffered a stroke in late 1921 and died aged 75 on January 17, 1922. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester. It is estimated he received several hundred thousand dollars in royalties.

See also The Wright brothers patent war, another vehicular technology patent lawsuit of the same time period George Brayton, inventor of the Brayton cycle engine

Footnotes

References Based on pages 184-199 of The Mayflower Murderer & Other Forgotten Firsts in American History, Peter F. Stevens, William Morrow, hardcover, 272 pages, ISBN 0-688-11818-6. Published simultaneously on Wikinfo. Flink, James J., The Automobile Age, MIT Press (1990), ISBN 0-262-56055-0 US 549160, Selden, George B., "Road-engine", published 1895-11-05

External links

George B. Selden at Find a Grave The Selden Motor Wagon Photos of the vehicle, plus articles about the gestation of the patent and the lengthy lawsuit which followed.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with George B. Selden

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what George B. Selden claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to George B. Selden before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about George B. Selden ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of George B. Selden

In research: George B. Selden appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses George B. Selden in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: George B. Selden is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1846 births, 1922 deaths, 20th-century American inventors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for George B. Selden outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study George B. Selden in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what George B. Selden means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain George B. Selden out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is George B. Selden in simple terms?

George Baldwin Selden (September 14, 1846 – January 17, 1922) was an American patent lawyer and inventor from New York who was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile in 1895. Early life and career In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R.

Why does George B. Selden matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study George B. Selden?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on George B. Selden.