Do we like Frederick McKinley Jones?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and real good done, but he died in 1961, so there's little of his own voice on today's questions to push it higher.
Casey Jones, as he was known, was born in 1893 to a Black mother and an Irish father, and his schooling ended at sixth grade. He took apart toys and kitchen appliances to see how they worked. By 12 he was sweeping floors at a Cincinnati auto garage, and he was foreman of the repair shop by 15.
The garage job taught him a lot about the world. One account says he designed race cars but was barred from racing them because of his race. Another says he was sacked after a year or two for racing cars during work hours. Either way, he left and drifted through odd jobs, ending up in Hallock, Minnesota in 1912.
In Hallock he worked as a mechanic on a huge farm and studied for engineering exams. He earned the highest-grade engineering licence Minnesota offered. He became the town's fix-it man, and among the things he built was the transmitter for its first radio station.
The big idea came when his partner Joseph Numero heard about a poultry truck whose ice had melted during a delay. Jones designed a compact roof-mounted unit with its own motor and a thermostat, so it ran itself. The two founded the company that became Thermo King, and the US military later used the units in World War II.
On the harm test, we found no lawsuits, accusations or nasty words on any group, and nothing on the planet either. That's partly the era: he died in 1961, so there's no social media trail. Take that as a clean sheet with a thin record, not a deep one.
The good stuff is real. His work made it possible to move fresh food long distances, he held more than 60 patents, and he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. He was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1991, the first African American to receive it. In 2024 the American Truck Historical Society added him to its Hall of Fame.