Schrader valve advert in Horseless Age v43 1918-02-15

August Schrader (1807–1894) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

inventor and mechanic. He is known for inventing the

Schrader valve The Schrader valve (also called American valve) is a type of pneumatic tire valve used on virtually every motor vehicle in the world today. The Schrader company, for which it was named, was founded in 1844 by August Schrader. The original Schra ...

Life

Schrader immigrated from Germany to the United States and opened a shop dealing in rubber products in

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New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.
A young mechanic named August Schrader, arrived in New York in 1840 from Hamburg Germany. " His original shop was located at 115 John Street. In 1845, he began supplying fittings and valves for rubber products made by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Goodyear Brothers, including air pillows and life preservers. He also made

daguerreotype Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...

apparatus. Then he went into partnership with Christian Baecher, a brass turner and finisher. After watching divers at work, Schrader sought to improve diving helmets. In 1849, he created a new copper helmet. Later, his interest in diving led to him to design an air pump. Around 1890, after reports of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

cyclists' success using

pneumatic Pneumatics (from Greek ‘wind, breath’) is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air. Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A central ...

tires A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineering), t ...

, August Schrader saw the need for a bicycle tire valve. By 1891 he had produced the

, which was his most popular invention and is used today. August's son, George, is generally credited with the experimental work that resulted in the valve's creation. In 1893, Schrader patented the tire valve cap. As with the introduction of the bicycle, early automobiles had solid wheels similar to those on carriages, followed by solid hard rubber. In time, tubed pneumatic tires and Schrader valves were introduced to cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Most of these ultimately went tubeless, but retained Schrader valves. For comparison, it should be compared with the

Presta valve The Presta valve (also French valve (FV) or Sclaverand valve) is a tire valve commonly found in high pressure road style and some mountain bicycle inner tubes. It comprises an outer valve stem and an inner valve body. A lock nut to secure the s ...

References and notes

External links

Schrader-Bridgeport website
* ttps://patents.google.com/patent/US495064 Schrader valve patent - US495064A 1807 births 1894 deaths 19th-century American inventors German emigrants to the United States {{US-inventor-stub