Inventor. He was, by profession, a dentist, but it was his numerous inventions that gained him fame. After wanting to aid one of his dental patients, who was a partial right arm amputee, in driving a car, he relocated the gearshift of the car from the floor to the steering wheel column. This enabled the patient to shift gears with the stump of his amputation rather than having to reach down on the floor with his left arm to shift gears. In 1934 he filed a patent for the "multiple final output mechanisms being moved by a single common final actuating mechanism," which was used to move the gearshift. He was sued by "General Motors Corporation, Petitioner, v. Elmer G. Kesling." For this United States Supreme Court case, he became known worldwide. The five-year court case ended in him receiving a patent royalty check for $344,893.00 according to his "New York Times" obituary. Eventually, he sold the patent to Ford. Newspaper headlines read, "check was so big his bank would not cash it." Under patent #2,450,668, he also invented the Kesling pocket adder, which was a white plastic stylus-operated non-printing adding machine with four adjacent wheels for entering numbers. This apparatus is on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
Inventor. He was, by profession, a dentist, but it was his numerous inventions that gained him fame. After wanting to aid one of his dental patients, who was a partial right arm amputee, in driving a car, he relocated the gearshift of the car from the floor to the steering wheel column. This enabled the patient to shift gears with the stump of his amputation rather than having to reach down on the floor with his left arm to shift gears. In 1934 he filed a patent for the "multiple final output mechanisms being moved by a single common final actuating mechanism," which was used to move the gearshift. He was sued by "General Motors Corporation, Petitioner, v. Elmer G. Kesling." For this United States Supreme Court case, he became known worldwide. The five-year court case ended in him receiving a patent royalty check for $344,893.00 according to his "New York Times" obituary. Eventually, he sold the patent to Ford. Newspaper headlines read, "check was so big his bank would not cash it." Under patent #2,450,668, he also invented the Kesling pocket adder, which was a white plastic stylus-operated non-printing adding machine with four adjacent wheels for entering numbers. This apparatus is on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
Bio by: Linda Davis
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