The Delco achievement stands as a thing apart in the development of American productive enterprise. It created a new industry, revolutionized the use of the automobile, and launched Deeds and Kettering on the road to wider and equally constructive fields. One became an outstanding industrial leader and builder; the other rose to be the greatest industrial scientist of his time.
The 40th anniversary of the invention of the starter found Kettering, Deeds and other members of the old “Barn Gang” previewing the displays in Deeds Barn.
The Liberty Engine
The Liberty engine, a milestone in the development of American aviation, is among the historic exhibits in Deeds Barn.
The Liberty Engine, one of the outstanding achievements of World War I, represents an engineering and manufacturing triumph that contributed much to man’s mastery of the air.
Conceived in less than six weeks during a time of crisis, it was the finest aircraft power plant of its time, and for a decade thereafter remained the nucleus around which aerial advances were made.
The story of the Liberty engine begins in 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. Air power, even then, had become a vital factor in military operations, and the hard-pressed Allies desperately needed a quantity-produced aircraft engine that would wrest control of the skies from the Central Powers. They turned to the United States and its industrial might for a solution to this critical problem.
How productive this appeal was to be was borne out in the events that followed. At the direction of Colonel Deeds, who was then serving as Chief of Aircraft Procurement, two automotive engineers literally locked themselves in a Washington hotel room and went to work. The date was May 29, 1917.