Italiano
“Maudit” is a French for “damned, accursed”. Often it is used for a poet dogged by misfortune and lack of recognition. An artist who has received little to no recognition during his lifetime.
Well, that’s pretty much what happened to Oliver Evans, the Maudit of the Catering Equipment Business!
Born in Delaware, at the time (late XVIII century) one of the 13 British Colonies, Oliver was a brilliant self-taught inventor, who registered several new patents in new emerging fields as such as automatization, steam power, lighting. But where He gave the most important contribution was in the Mills Industry. His “automatic flour mill” marked a cornerstone in the bakery industry of the recently born USA. The flour supply rose esponentially and the price of it became way more affordable, while its quality were improved, making the bread production and consumption popular as it never was before.
A few more innovations in what we call now “Catering Equipment” field: he projected a dough-kneading machine, a perpetual baking oven and, last but not the least, the fundaments of what we call today a “refrigerator“.
But…
Oliver’s inventions were often overlooked by the Science Community. The feeling of being not taken seriously really damaged his mood.
In fact he was under-appreciated. Maybe because He wasn’t good at promoting his inventions. or maybe because He lacked terribly of what today are called “Social Skills”.
And more, he was forced to spend practically his entire adult life defending his inventions from those who wanted to get hold of them thanks to judicial technicalitys and other low subterfuges.
In 1805 He was about to publish a Steam Engineer’s guide. But the constant arguments with colleagues made him abandon the intent. He did publish the book eventually, but with a name that revealed his frustration, albeit with a devious irony: “The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer’s Guide”
One day, after yet another lost judicial battle, he set fire to many of the projects he was still working on.
That life had led him, according to his own words, “only to heartache, disappointment and under-appreciation”.
Truth to be told, one of the reasons (a big one) he had been “cast aside” were due to his paranoic personality and the delusions of persecution he was suffering, which have been leading him to to give up projects prematurely for many times over the course of his life.
A “Maudit” engineer. A Catering Equipment bohemien.
Or, maybe, simply a guy with a really difficult personality!
