The firm of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company manufactured

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. ...

and

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...

s in

Hamilton, Ohio Hamilton is a city in and the county seat of Butler County, Ohio, United States. Located north of Cincinnati, Hamilton is the second largest city in the Greater Cincinnati area and the 10th largest city in Ohio. The population was 63,399 at ...

. Because the firm was frequently known by its initials, H.O.R., the ''Hooven'' is sometimes incorrectly rendered as ''Hoover'', and the ''Owens'' may be mistaken for ''Owen''.

History

Origin

The firm was the successor to the firm of Owens, Ebert & Dyer (founded in 1845 by Job E. Owens) which went into receivership in 1876. In 1882, George A. Rentschler, J. C. Hooven, Henry C. Sohn, George H. Helvey, and James E. Campbell merged the firm with the iron works of Sohn and Rentschler, and adopted the name Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Co. In 1883 the firm began the manufacture of

Corliss steam engine A Corliss steam engine (or Corliss engine) is a steam engine, fitted with rotary valves and with variable valve timing patented in 1849, invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss of Providence, Rhode Island. Engines f ...

s, producing a total of 700 such engines by 1901.

20th century, first part

By World War I, the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler Company operated the largest exclusive Corliss Engine plant in the country, employing nearly 800 men. Niles Tool Works, Hamilton, Ohio, 1896

In 1928 the company merged with the Niles Tool Works to form the General Machinery Corporation. However, it continued to make diesel engines under the H.O.R. brand, and supplied many of the powerplants for United States submarines and liberty ships during World War II. General Machinery Corporation ranked 91st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. In the 1930s H.O.R. developed a double-acting

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...

diesel engine, initially based on the German cruiser ''Leipzig'''s

MAN A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromo ...

engines but with eight cylinders instead of seven, expanded to nine cylinders in the final submarine version. The double-acting design produced more power from a physically smaller engine than conventional designs. However, H.O.R.'s double-acting engines, particularly those of USS ''Pompano'', gained notoriety for their unreliability in the submarine force, where they were nicknamed "whores". Owing to the limited space available within the submarines, either opposed-piston or, in this case, double-acting engines were favored for being more compact. An inherent problem with double-acting cylinders, owing to the piston rod reducing the piston area on one side, is an imbalance in the force on each side of the piston. The H.O.R. engines were plagued by vibration and other problems as a result. This in turn overstressed the drive train and caused the gears (which themselves had been incorrectly manufactured) to shed teeth, create

torsional vibration Torsional vibration is angular vibration of an object—commonly a shaft along its axis of rotation. Torsional vibration is often a concern in power transmission systems using rotating shafts or couplings where it can cause failures if not cont ...

, and frequently rendered the engine and gear train inoperable. As an example of the problems caused by the unreliability of the H.O.R. engines, Captain Charles Herbert Andrews of the USS ''Gurnard'' recalled concerning a war patrol in support of

Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – 16 November 1942) was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while al ...

, "I only used three, saving the fourth for a spare. When two of them broke down in the Bay of Biscay, I cut the patrol short and limped back to Scotland." During World War II, all submarine H.O.R. engines were replaced by early 1943, usually with

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and was the largest in the world for 77 years bef ...

Cleveland Division engines or Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 engines. The wartime performance of the H.O.R. engines was so poor that Captain Tommy Dykers of the USS ''Jack'' said, "The H.O.R. engines saved the Japanese thirty or forty ships."

20th century, second part

In 1947, General Machinery Corporation merged with

Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between ...

to form Lima-Hamilton Corporation, which, in turn, merged in 1950 with Baldwin Locomotive Works to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation. BLH, Hamilton Div., moved to the Eddystone, Pa. plant of BLH in 1959. BLH went out of business around 1966. An HOR combination steam engine is preserved in the

Henry Ford Museum The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection contains ...

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per ...

. It is one of 12 units (this one was built and installed in 1916) that were made for Mr. Ford for his Highland Park assembly plant where he produced the Model T from 1908 until its production demise in 1927. This engine was removed from the Highland Park facility and placed in storage after the Ford Motor Company took up permanent residence at the giant River Rouge facilities to produce the Model A. Mr. Ford donated the steam engine to his Edison Institute as the cornerstone display in 1929. The Edison Institute later was renamed the Henry Ford Museum and is known today as "The Henry Ford".

References

Bibliography

*{{cite journal , last1=Wright , first1=C. C. , title=Question 17/03: Replacement of US Submarine Diesel Engines , journal=Warship International , date=2005 , volume=XLII , issue=4 , pages=431–434 , issn=0043-0374 American companies established in 1845 Manufacturing companies established in 1845 Engine manufacturers of the United States 1845 establishments in Ohio