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Eldorado Jones

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Eldorado Jones with the airplane muffler she invented.

Eldorado Jones (1860 - 1932) Eldorado Jones, was an inventor and early trailblazer in women’s rights. Jones never got married and her disdain towards men would play a role throughout her life and become a prominent factor in how she ran her businesses. Jones was born in 1860 in Palmyra, Missouri. Her family moved to St. Louis, and her father, Alonzo Jones, deserted them.

Although she later found happiness in innovation, Jones began her career working as a teacher in Lafayette, Indiana. Jones actively detested her decision to become a teacher and realized she could make better use of her time, while earning more money, selling insurance at a company in Chicago.

Jones enjoyed working with iron and began inventing in 1913 which proved to be more lucrative than her previous jobs. Nicknamed “Iron Woman,” Jones was best known for her invention of the airplane muffler, though she was also successful in inventing a lightweight iron. This invention was a portable iron with a compartment for a flatiron that included a collapsible hat rack. She created a company called Eldorado Inventions, Inc, in Moline, Illinois, and only employed women who were over the age of 40. Jones banned men from participating in her successful company because she was a staunch advocate of women in business and gained a reputation for being adamantly opposed to men. Because her business was doing so well, many businessmen attempted to purchase it, but Jones refused to sell her business to a man.

She devised an airplane muffler in 1919 to reduce the loudness of the sound pressure by using acoustic quieting. Following tests at Roosevelt Field, she patented the invention in 1923. Time magazine described the muffler in action:

Puffing upon one cigaret after another, Miss Jones directed mechanics in attaching to the Cirrus engine of a Moth biplane a muffler of her own invention. As the plane sped along the runway and over the hangars there were noises—of thrumming propeller, snapping pistons, vibrating metal—but there was no bark of exhaust.

As Popular Science reported in 1931, the muffler reduced noise without reducing power. That same year, Modern Mechanics and Inventions described it as "the first successful exhaust muffler for airplane engines." The muffler used "a series of small pinwheels which 'chew up' the sound waves and retard the passage of exhaust gasses without creating undue back pressure upon the engine."

The muffler would have been her most successful invention but she was unable to obtain any financial backing which led to a depletion of funds before she could make a profit.  

Jones was known for her "energy, her self-reliance, and her general distrust of men." Unfortunately, her disdain hampered the muffler's financial success and likely led to her financial downfall later in life.

The New York Times marked her death in 1932 with the headline Woman Inventor Dies in Poverty. The obituary closed with a quotation from Jones: "Do not forget to exploit men all you can. Because if you don't, they will exploit you."

References

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  1. "Woman Inventor Dies in Poverty". The New York Times. November 27, 1932.
  2. "Raise Money to Bury Inventor". The Reading Times. November 29, 1933
  3. "Fighting Noise". Time. 16 (17): 48. October 27, 1930 – via EBSCOhost.
  4. Patent number: 1473235
  5. Macdonald, Anne L. (2010). Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed America. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0307775498
  6. "Died a Pauper". The Palmyra Spectator. July 5, 1939. Retrieved 2016-12-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. Robison, Hester (Jan 17, 1926). "Troubles of a Woman Inventor". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Muffler Quiets Plane; Doesn't Cut Power". Popular Science. Bonnier Corporation. 118: 52. 1931. ISSN 0161-7370
  9. Arnold, Major H. H. (February 1931). "Plane Talk". Modern Mechanics and Inventions. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
  10. Aquila, T. (2014, May 20). Woman inventor Eldorado Jones of the Airplane Muffler. Teresa's Garage.com. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
  11. Ethw. (2020, April 2). Eldorado Jones. ETHW. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://ethw.org/Eldorado_Jones


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