Metalman's Medal

At Philadelphia's Franklin Institute one afternoon last week twelve men received from President Nathan Hayward the Institute's annual awards for achievements in science. Among the distinguished dozen were two Detroiters, one of them, Charles Franklin Kettering, already famed as General Motors' research vice president; the other so little known even in his home city that, when Detroit newspapers got word of the Franklin awards, they could find no mention of him in their morgues. This was Albert Leroy Marsh, president of Detroit's Hoskins Manufacturing Co., who won the John Price Wetherill Medal "for discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences or for new and important combinations of principles or methods already known," as a result of work which had set him on the road to fortune, if not fame, 31 years ago. Mr. Marsh's profitable discovery was made in 1905. He fused a new alloy called Chromel--20% chromium, 80% nickel-- which is still the only alloy or metal (except costly platinum) capable of offering prolonged electric resistance without burning out. Of this alloy or its variants are now made the wire elements which glow in electric stoves, heaters, curling irons, percolators, toasters, sterilizers, waffle irons, cigaret lighters, bed pads. Such an alloy is also used in 85% of all U. S. spark plugs. Metalman Marsh was the first man to make it, first to produce it commercially, first to put it on the market. More than half the alloy wire in U. S. heating elements is still made in his tidy Detroit plant.

Born in Pontiac, Ill., 58 years ago, Metalman Marsh began fiddling with chemistry in a woodshed. Quitting the University of Illinois after an argument with his chemistry professor, he worked with the State Water Survey Office testing Illinois River water, later with Chicago Storage Battery Co., where he became interested in the heat resistant qualities of metal conductors. William Hoskins, a consulting chemist, let Marsh use his lab oratory after work to tinker with alloys, later took him into the firm of Mariner & Hoskins. That is where Chromel was born. Hoskins Co. was incorporated in 1908, marketing an electric furnace developed during the Chromel experimentations. Next year the company was moved from Chicago to Detroit. Hoskins dropped out in 1910, and Marsh was faced with the strenuous job of marketing a product for which there was yet little need. When General Electric began making the alloy for itself, Mr. Marsh pressed a long-lived patent infringement suit, finally in 1915 compelled that firm to buy a part interest in Chromel patents. The memory of the time spent in court still irks Mr. Marsh. Until the Chromel patents expired in 1923, Hoskins received large royalties from heating appliance manufacturers. Expansion of the electric appliance field, how ever, more than compensated for lost royalties. With total assets of less than $2,000,000, Hoskins last year made $429,000. Slow-spoken, tousled, deliberate, Metalman Marsh wears polka-dot ties, is rarely without a cigar. Before last week he had never received scientific kudos. Never plagued by labor troubles at the Hoskins plant, he worked out an employe compensation plan 13 years ago whereby a generous slice of profits is distributed to his 200 workers every year. Many a Hoskins man has waxed well-to-do ploughing back his bonuses into Hoskins stock, which pays $2 plus extras, sells at about $52 per share on the Detroit Stock Exchange.

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