Person

Thomas Midgley Jr.

American engineer at General Motors’ research laboratory in Dayton; vice president of the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation in 1925.

7 links, 2 backed by primary records. 13 more in open data

Connections 7

Early federal questions about tetraethyl lead, 1922-1923 answered the Surgeon General’s question, by The Nation’s account Scholarship & press 2
First sale of ethyl gasoline, 1923 by The Nation’s account, left work for lung trouble in January 1923 Scholarship & press 2
Surgeon General’s conference on tetraethyl lead, 1925 for Ethyl: said the danger lay in carelessness, not the fluid Primary record 1
Finding tetraethyl lead’s anti-knock effect, 1921 engineer who reported the finding Scholarship & press 2

The Secret History of Lead the article’s account of the 1921 finding and the 1924 demonstration Scholarship & press 2

Timeline 2 dates

Proof 2 sources

Proceedings of a Conference to Determine Whether or Not There Is a Public Health Question in the Manufacture, Distribution, or Use of Tetraethyl Lead Gasoline (Public Health Bulletin No. 158), U.S. Public Health Service, Treasury Department, 1925. Primary record
Vice President, Ethyl Gasoline Corporation
Tetraethyl lead is not so much a dangerous poison as it is a treacherous one.
The Secret History of Lead (Jamie Lincoln Kitman, The Nation, March 2000), The Nation, 20 Mar 2000. Scholarship & press
On December 9, 1921, a young engineer named Thomas Midgley Jr. , working in the laboratory of the General Motors Research Corporation in Dayton, Ohio, reported to his boss, Charles Kettering , that he’d discovered that tetraethyl lead
no actual experimental data has been taken.
I find that my lungs have been affected and that it is necessary to drop all work and get a large supply of fresh air.

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