Reginald A. Fessenden House
Reginald A. Fessenden was born Quebec in 1866, and entered Bishop's University as a precocious young mathematical prodigy, but left in 1884 without graduating. In 1886, he took a position at the Edison Machine Works, working for inventor Thomas Edison. During an academic period teaching at Purdue University and at the University of Pittsburgh, Fessenden engaged in research on the nascent subject of wireless telegraphy. Much of the rest of his life he was employed in industry, either directly or as a consultant, but was often living near poverty, and produced a stream of inventions. In 1904 he invented the rotary spark-gap transmitter, and in 1906 he built a large transmitter in Massachusetts from which he successfully made a voice transmission. He also discovered the means to recombine separate frequencies to form a coherent audible sound. At his death he was described by inventor and businessman Elihu Thomson as "the greatest wireless inventor of the age, greater than Marconi."
Mark Allen Baker
The author's nineteenth book, The Fighting Times of Abe Attell, was published in the fall of 2017. Known for his record-setting, six year consecutive reign as World Featherweight Champion from 1906-1912, Abraham Washington Attell (1883-1970) was among the cleverest, most scientific professional boxers ever to enter the ring. Attell's success inspired his brothers Caesar and Monte to take up the sport—Abe and Monte both held simultaneous world titles for a time. This first ever biography covers Attell's life and career. Growing up poor and Jewish in a predominantly Irish neighborhood, he faced his share of adversity and anti-Semitism in and out of the ring. He was charged for alleged involvement in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. The charges were dropped but Attell was branded by association for the remainder of his life. During the third week in January 2017, The Fighting Times of Abe Attell hit #1 on Amazon's List of Hot New Releases in Boxer Biographies-the book also hit #1 New Release in Jewish Biographies in December 2017.
Baker's twentieth book is Connecticut in World War II. The work, consisting of over 200 black & white images, continues the author's proud commitment to regional history. With the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, and the United States’ entry into World War II, our nation turned to Connecticut―as it did during World War I―for munitions, clothing, and other goods. And Connecticut answered the call: Manchester Mills increased silk production, Waterbury brass producers altered their manufacturing lines, and Bridgeport's Remington Arms―which had produced 50 percent of the US Army's small arms cartridges in World War I―increased its mass production capabilities. By the time Electric Boat, Hamilton Propellers, Pratt & Whitney, and many other Connecticut companies tallied up their production back in 1945, it amounted to over $8 billion in war contracts.