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figure 10. Brush's mansion and a windmill-driven electric power generator on
his property in 1890. (Source: " Charles Francis Brush, " Harper's Weekly, vol. 34,
pp. 583-584, 1890.)

the 1890s and for much of the rest of
his life, Bush was preoccupied with
the " ether of space " and gravitation.
In 1898, he published experiments
that purported to show the existence
of a new gas " with enormous heat
conductivity at low pressures. " He
called this new gas etheron because
he inferred that it " fills all celestial
space. " In 1911 and then again in 1921
and 1922, he published papers about
a " kinetic theory of gravitation. " He
believed that " the kinetic energy of
the ether is the fundamental cause
of gravitation. "
As a businessman, Brush successfully and profitably shepherded the introduction of German air liquefaction
manufacturing into the United States.
German scientist and industrialist Carl
von Linde had invented a process for
industrial-scale refrigeration, and in
1879 he and his partners founded Gesellschaft für Linde's Eismaschinen, a
maker of refrigeration machinery. He
then invented a process for industrialscale air liquefaction and entered that
business, too. Air liquefaction led to the
large-scale manufacture of high-purity
oxygen for oxy-acetylene welding and
other uses. Linde decided to establish
an American subsidiary. He filed a patent application in the United States, in
1895, for a " process of producing low
temperatures, the liquefaction of gases,
and the separation of the constituents
of a gaseous mixture, " but his efforts
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to acquire an American patent stalled
because of a pending application for air
liquefaction by Charles E. Tripler.
Brush offered to help in exchange
for a share in Linde's American venture. Brush filed a second patent on
Linde's behalf in 1900 for the apparatus to carry out Linde's process, and
he succeeded in having the conflicting
application rejected in 1902. Linde's
two patent applications were approved
in 1903, both one-third assigned to
Brush (patents 727,650 and 728,173).
Negotiations between Linde and Brush
followed. Linde Air Products was born
in 1907. It was absorbed by newly incorporated Union Carbide & Carbon in
1917, which changed its name to Union
Carbide in 1957.
As a philanthropist, in 1928, Brush
created a foundation for " furtherance
of research in the field of eugenics and
in the regulation of the increase of population, " in honor of his son Charles
Francis Brush Jr., with an initial bequest of US$500,000. The Brush Foundation's first grant of US$5,000 was
awarded in 1929 to establish a birth
control clinic in Cleveland. With the
discrediting of the eugenics movement
after Nazi Germany used it to justify
genocide, the foundation's focus since
World War II has been to advance reproductive health and rights through
targeted philanthropy.
In 1927, Brush lost his son and a
granddaughter. Charles Jr. gave a blood

transfusion to a very ill daughter. She
did not survive. Charles Jr. died on
29 May 1927 at age 33, from complications caused by the transfusion. He
had studied chemistry and physics at
Harvard University and with a partner
founded Brush Laboratories with his
father's help in 1921. There, he studied
the properties of the very light metal
beryllium for the purpose of developing industrial uses for it. In 1931, Brush
Laboratories developed a method for
extracting beryllium metal from ore,
prompting a name change to Brush
Beryllium. Additional name changes
followed through the years. It is now
Materion of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, a
suburb of Cleveland. Materion manufactures advanced-performance alloys
and composite materials. Charles F.
Brush died on 15 June 1929 in Cleveland at age 80.

For Further Reading
C. F. Brush, The Brush System of Electric Lighting. Cleveland, OH: Wiseman
& Harvey, 1879.
The Brush Electric Light. Cleveland, Ohio: Brush Electric Company,
1881.
M. E. Thompson, " A study of an
open coil arc dynamo, " Trans. AIEE,
vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 375-395, 1891. doi:
10.1109/T-AIEE.1891.5570153.
H. C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers-1875-1900. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1953.
H. J. Eisenman, Charles F. Brush:
Pioneer Innovator in Electrical Technology. Cleveland, OH: Case Western
Reserve Univ., 1967.
A. Allerhand, " Hydroelectric power: The first 30 years, " IEEE Power
Energy Mag., vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 76-87,
Sept./Oct. 2020. doi: 10.1109/MPE.
2020.2999791.
The Brush Electric Company,
American Electrical Directory for
1886, Fort Wayne, IN: Star Iron Tower
Co., p. 331, 1886.
" Report of the Committee on Dynamo-Electric Machines, " Journal of
the Franklin Institute, vol. 105, p. 296,
1878.
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