Lyle D. Goodhue (September 30, 1903 – September 18, 1981) was an internationally known inventor, research chemist and entomologist, with 105 U. S. and 25 foreign patents.Lyle D. Goodhue obituary, New York Times, September 21, 1981.Tulsa Sunday World, “It Was A Time for Dancing” article about Dr. Goodhue by Wayne Mason, June 18, 1967. He invented the "aerosol bomb" (also known as the "bug bomb"), which was credited with saving the lives of many thousands of soldiers during World War II by dispensing malaria mosquito-killing liquid insecticides as a mist from small containers. The Bug BombWestinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Springfield, Massachusetts, working with Goodhue and Sullivan, developed the first practical aerosol bomb container about 1942. Its employees originated the terms “bug bomb” or “aerosol bomb” because of the unit’s similar physical appearance to a small bomb, according to an article in the May 1965 issue of Aerosol Age entitled “How It All Began”, by Dr. Lyle Goodhue. The “bomb”, he said, was actually adapted from a one-pound Freon 12 cylinder, already in commercial use for charging household refrigerators. Before the end of World War II, Westinghouse had produced over 30 million units, and another 10 million were produced by three other companies. became especially important to the war effort after the Philippines fell in 1942, when it was reported that malaria had played a major part in the defeat of American and British forces.March 4, 1943, Syracuse Herald-Journal article, page 2, headlined "New Health Bomb Devised to Combat Diseases in Tropics" quoted Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, Springfield, Massachusetts: "America's fighting men in tropical jungles are now armed against malaria and yellow fever with a new weapon, a 'health bomb' that exterminates disease-carrying insects. The new weapon is an insecticide dispenser that discharges a mist fatal to dangerous insects, but harmless to humans... The dispensers were developed by Dr. Lyle D. Goodhue, a young Department of Agriculture chemist." Syracuse Herald-Journal, March 4, 1943 Also, The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1989, Centennial Journal: 100 Years in Business, "IT Bombed, but It Was a Success, 1941" described this wartime godsend. Also, pictures of a Bug Bomb filling line for U. S. Navy, 1943 Aerosol Bug Bomb Filling Line WW II and Bug Bomb Filling Line for U.S. Navy, WW II After the war, this invention gave birth to a new international billion-dollar aerosol industry. A broad variety of consumer products ranging from cleaners and paints to hair spray and food have since been packaged in aerosol containers. Goodhue's other patents involved insect, bird and animal repellents; herbicides; nematicides; insecticides and other pesticides.

Education and personal life

Goodhue was born on a farm in Malaka Township, Jasper County, Iowa, on September 30, 1903, to Thomas Warwick and Katherine Jane (Engle) Goodhue. Due to his poor eyesight, he was not allowed to enter first grade in Malaka's one-room school house until he was nine years old. After retiring, he acknowledged that he was legally blind,Article “It Was a Time for Dancing”, by Wayne Mason, Tulsa Sunday World, June 18, 1967.

In 1924, Goodhue graduated from Newton High School in Newton, Iowa.The 1924 Newton, Iowa Newtonia highschool yearbook described Lyle Goodhue as a “Quiet lad, but never sad”. He went on to earn a B.S. (chemistry) in 1928, an M.S. (plant chemistry) in 1929 and a Ph.D. (plant chemistry)Lyle Goodhue's Iowa State 1929 M.S. thesis subject was "Chloral Derivatives of Carbohydrates" (OCLC No. 35596837) Chloral Derivatives of Carbohydrates His 1934 Ph.D. thesis subject was "The Effect of Solvent Upon Polar Properties of Organic Compounds" (OCLC No. 31467802) The Effect of Solvent Upon Polar Properties of Organic Compounds. in 1934 from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

He married Helen Elizabeth Hamaker, daughter of Charles Haynes and Jenny Leuna (Davis) Hamaker, on June 19, 1929, in Des Moines, Iowa. Their first daughter and son were born in Ames, while Goodhue was studying for his Ph.D. Goodhue worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Japanese Beetle Laboratory in Moorestown, New Jersey, when his second son was born, and had transferred to the USDA's Agricultural Research Centre in Beltsville, Maryland when his second daughter was born.

Goodhue died September 18, 1981, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.Lyle D. Goodhue obituary, New York Times, September 21, 1981.

Career

The disposable spray can was largely undeveloped until Lyle Goodhue devised a practical version and filed for a patent in 1941Some early aerosol patents:

Patent No. 2,285,950 for “Method of Applying Insecticides”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan on January 10, 1940 (Serial No. 313,218) and granted June 9, 1942.

Patent No. 2,306,434 for “Method of Applying Insecticides”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan on March 31, 1941(Serial No. 386,058) and granted December 29, 1942.

Patent No. 2,321,023 for “Method of Applying Parasiticides”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan on July 29, 1941 (Serial No. 404,520) and granted June 8, 1943. Note: This aerosol patent was featured in a special exhibit, which Dr. Goodhue attended, at the U.S. Patent Office in Arlington, Virginia on October 13, 1969. The invention produced the first true aerosol utilizing a liquified gas.

Patent No. 2,331,117 (Serial No. 413,474) for an aerosol “dispensing apparatus”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan on October 3, 1941 (including dispenser drawing), and granted October 5, 1943.

Patent No. 2,345,892 for “Synergists to Aerosol Insecticides” originally filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan September 30, 1941 (Serial No. 412,960) and granted April 4, 1944 (Serial No. 517,359). Note: This patent was part of a series of 19 patents from No. 2,345,891 through No. 2,345,909 granted in 1944 to Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan.

Patent No. 2,412,728 for “Device for producing Aerosols”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue December 8, 1943 (Serial No. 513, 400) with drawing, and granted December 17, 1946. while working for the USDA.

Goodhue's earliest aerosol propellant idea came to mind when he worked in 1929 and 1930 as a research chemist on lacquer formulations at the DuPont Chemical laboratories in Parlin, New Jersey.Article “Bug Bombardier”, Coronet (magazine) (Esquire, Inc.), by Alfred H. Sinks, March 1946. That aerosol spray concept was greatly expanded, written in his lab notebook, and witnessed by his boss, Dr. Frank L. Campbell, October 5, 1935, when both worked at the Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville.Letter dated March 17, 1964 from Dr. Frank L. Campbell, then Executive Secretary, Division of Biology and Agriculture, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, to Frank J. Reilly, MacNair-Dorland Company, New York, NY, identifying Dr. Lyle Goodhue as being “solely responsible for the scientific and technical development of the aerosol bomb”. The letter goes on to say that “His patent partner, William N. Sullivan, was my former assistant but had nothing to do with the basic ideas and know-how required for development of the bomb... he does not rank with Goodhue as co-inventor.” Also, article “How It All Began”, by Lyle D. Goodhue, Aerosol Age, May 1965. (This article included a reproduction of the lab notebook page initialed by Dr. Frank Campbell October 5, 1935.)

As a result of their research, which began January 1941 at USDA, Goodhue, then of Berwyn, Maryland, and William N. Sullivan, of Washington, D.C., received a patent in 1943 for an aerosol "dispensing apparatus". Patent No. 2,331,117 (Serial No. 413,474) for an aerosol “dispensing apparatus”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan on October 3, 1941 (including dispenser drawing), and granted October 5, 1943. This was the first commercially feasible application which allowed a fine spray to escape through a nozzle mounted on a small container.. Using liquified gas as a propellant, the one-pound portable cylinder allowed U.S. soldiers to effectively repel tropical malaria-carrying insects by spraying non-toxic insecticides inside tents and troop planes during World War II. From 1942 through 1945, more than 40 million "aerosol bombs" were sent to the troops.

In 1945, Goodhue, often called the "Father of the Aerosol Industry", joined Airosol, Inc., in Neodesha, Kansas, as director of research. This company, which had been originally established to manufacture aerosol containers of insecticide for the military during World War II, became a leading packager of aerosol spray consumer products after the war.

In 1947, Goodhue joined Phillips Petroleum Company, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, as a senior research chemist and director of agricultural chemicals research. Of the 98 patents which he received at Phillips, he felt that his most important discovery was Avitrol a treatment which controls and disperses bird infestations through behavioral responses.Avitrol-related patents and literature:

Patent No. 3,044,930 for “N-oxides of Heterocyclic Nitrogen Compounds as Bird and Rodent Repellants”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue and Kenneth E. Cantrel on December 8, 1960 (Serial No. 74,447), and granted July 17, 1962.

Patent No. 3,113,072 for “Nitro-substituted Heterocyclic Nitrogen Compounds as Bird Management Chemicals”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue, Andrew J. Reinert and Ralph P. Williams on November 13, 1961 (Serial No. 152,005), and granted December 3, 1963.

Patent No. 3,150,041 for “Amino-substituted Heterocyclic Nitrogen Compounds as Bird Management Chemicals”, filed by Lyle D. Goodhue, Andrew J. Reinert and Ralph P. Williams October 8, 1962 (Serial No. 229,155), and granted September 2, 1964.

Literature written in 1965 by L. D. Goodhue and F. M. Baumgartner often cited for bird repellant using 4- aminopyridine (4-AP or Avitrol 200): “Applications of New Bird Control Chemicals”, The Journal of Wildlife Management, Volume 29, No. 4, pages 830-837, and “The Avitrol Method of Bird Control”, Pest Control 33(7), pages 16-17, 46, 48.

Article “It’s For Birds”, Philnews, Phillips Petroleum Company, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, January 1965, pages 4-7. He retired from Phillips in 1968 as Avitrol technical manager.

Aerosol development

Goodhue wrote this account in 1969 of his ground-breaking 1941 aerosol experiment while working for the USDA in Maryland:

In a 1967 newspaper interview, Goodhue had previously revealed a few more dramatic details of his discovery. Wayne Mason, a reporter for the Tulsa World, wrote, “It was on Easter Sunday in 1941 when the great moment came in Goodhue’s life. He had just sprayed a few dozen American roaches with the new aerosol. In his words, “In less than 10 minutes all were on their backs. No one else was in the building. I yelled at the top of my voice and danced around wildly. As soon as I could regain my composure, I drove home like a mad man and called Bill Sullivan and John Fales, and with great enthusiasm gave them the results of the first test.”Article “It Was A Time for Dancing”, by Wayne Mason, Tulsa Sunday World, June 18, 1967. Article “What Hath Plunkett, Goodhue, Strosacker, et al Wrought?” by Dorothy Parker and James Baldwin Nureyev, Esquire magazine, July 1968, p. 52.

Honors and awards

He was also a member of the professional chemical fraternity of Alpha Chi Sigma, the American Chemical Society, and the Entomological Society of America. Goodhue received a number of citations from the U.S. Army and U. S. Navy during and after World War II. He authored over 100 technical papers and scientific articles.