Irving Naxon (1902 – September 22, 1989) was an American inventor, who is most famous for inventing and patenting the

slow cooker A slow cooker, also known as a crock-pot (after a trademark owned by Sunbeam Products but sometimes used generically in the English-speaking world), is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used to simmer at a lower temperature than othe ...

. Naxon was also the first Jewish engineer who worked for

Western Electric The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...

Personal life

Naxon was born in 1902 in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. His mother had immigrated to the United States from Russia. His father died when he was two years old. He had two siblings, an older brother – Meyer – and a younger sister – Sadie. After his father's death, his family moved from Jersey City to

Fargo, North Dakota Fargo ( /ˈfɑɹɡoʊ/) is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 125,990, making it the most populous city in the state and the 219th-most populous city in ...

, and then to

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

. Naxon's mother moved him and his siblings to Winnipeg so that her oldest son, Meyer, could avoid the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

. While in Canada, Naxon studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

through a

correspondence course Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

. He moved back to Chicago sometime after. He married his wife Fern and they had three daughters, Jewel, Eileen, and Lenore. In 1945, he changed his name from Nachumsohn to Naxon due to anti-German sentiment after WWII.

Career

After receiving his electrical engineering training, Naxon worked as a

telegrapher A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio. During the Great War the Roya ...

for the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

. He later moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and became the

’s first Jewish engineer. He continued working on his inventions outside of work and passed the patent

bar exam A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associa ...

to avoid hiring a lawyer. He founded his own company – Naxon Utilities Corporation. In 1936, Naxon applied for a patent for the

. On January 23, 1940, he received that patent. The first iteration of Naxon's slow cooker was ''The Boston Beanery'' and later the ''Naxon Beanery'' and ''Flavor Crock.'' In 1970, Naxon retired and sold his business and his patent for the slowcooker to the Rival Company for a lump sum rather than stock. Rival Company rebranded Naxon's invention into what is now known as the ''Crock Pot.'' In addition to the slow cooker, Naxon also invented serval other appliances and has over 200 patents to his name. He invented an electric frying pan and the hula lamp, a precursor to the

lava lamp A lava lamp is a decorative lamp, invented in 1963 by British entrepreneur Edward Craven Walker, the founder of the lighting company Mathmos. It consists of a bolus of a special coloured wax mixture inside a glass vessel, the remainder of which ...

. Another notable invention of Naxon is his ''TeleSign'', an electronic sign that shows moving text resembling today's

news ticker A news ticker (sometimes called a "crawler", "crawl", "slide", "zipper", or "ticker tape") is a horizontal or vertical (depending on a language's writing system) text-based display either in the form of a graphic that typically resides in the lo ...

Death

Naxon died on September 22, 1989, in an Evanston nursing home. At the time, he was survived by his wife, three daughters, and five grandchildren.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Naxon, Irving 1902 births 1989 deaths 20th-century inventors American Jews Canadian Pacific Railway people Inventors from New Jersey Patent holders People from Jersey City, New Jersey