Carl Strandlund (5 March 1899 – 26 December 1974) was a Swedish-born American inventor and entrepreneur.

Background

Carl Gunnar Strandlund was born in

Sundsvall Sundsvall () is a city and the seat of Sundsvall Municipality in Västernorrland County, Sweden. It has a population of 58,807 as of 2020; more than 95,000 live in the municipal area. It is Sweden's 21st largest city by population. Old town i ...

Västernorrland County Västernorrland County () is a county ('' län'') in the north of Sweden. It is bordered by the counties of Gävleborg, Jämtland, Västerbotten and the Gulf of Bothnia. The name ''Västernorrland'' means "Western Norrland", as it was in the ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. Strandlund came to the United States at the age of four and grew up in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in the 2020 census, it is the largest city in Rock Island County and the List of municipalities in Illinois, ninth-most populous in Illinois outside ...

. As a young man, he took correspondence school classes in engineering. His grandfather had been an engineer in Sweden. His father worked in the United States for

John Deere Deere & Company, Trade name, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, Transmission (mechanical device), transmi ...

Career

Strandlund held over 150

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

implement patents through his work as a production engineer at the

Minneapolis-Moline Minneapolis-Moline was a large tractor and farm and industrial machinery producer based in Minneapolis and Hopkins, Minnesota, Minnesota known for its Minneapolis-Moline tractor line. It was the product of a merger of three companies in 1929: Min ...

tractor company, including the creation of

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Types of polyisoprene ...

tire A tire (North American English) or tyre (Commonwealth 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 (engineeri ...

s for

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

s. He later served as president of the

Oliver Farm Equipment Company The Oliver Farm Equipment Company was an American farm equipment manufacturer from the 20th century. It was formed as a result of a 1929 merger of four companies: the American Seeding Machine Company of Richmond, Indiana; Oliver Chilled Plow Wor ...

. He was hired by the Chicago Vitreous Enamel Product Company to transform the factory for defense production. Strandlund invented manufacturing techniques to build non-warping metal plates for tanks during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, created

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

systems for movie theaters, and invented a wallpaper-removing machine. The company rewarded him with a promotion to vice president and general manager in September 1943. Strandlund was most noted for inventing and promoting the

Lustron house Lustron houses are prefabricated enameled steel houses developed in the post-World War II era United States in response to the shortage of homes for returning G.I.s by Lustron Corporation and Chicago industrialist and inventor Carl Strandlund ...

(built of porcelain-enameled

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

panels - ) to help address the housing shortage after

. 2498 homes were built 1948–1950 at a large assembly plant in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

, through financing from the

Reconstruction Finance Corporation The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States federal government that served as a lender of last resort to US banks and businesses. Established in ...

. The Lustron plant assembly line was some 9 miles long and the plant consumed more power than the rest of the entire city of Columbus. Mismanagement, politics, and corruption were blamed for the downfall of Lustron, which shut down amid

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

and bankruptcy in 1953. As of 2004, the majority of the 2,498 Lustron homes built were still standing. Fifty Lustrons have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.''The Story of Lustron Homes'' ( Judy Reickert. Lustron Connection.Org)
In a September 12, 1982, ''

Minneapolis Tribune ''The Minnesota Star Tribune'', formerly the ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'', is an American daily newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of 2023, it is Minnesota's largest newspaper and the seventh-largest in the United States by circula ...

'' article, Strandlund's widow Clara related how Strandlund reacted to the closure of Lustron: "He was physically and mentally destroyed," she said. "Everything we had went. They took everything but our home." He died in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, at the age of 75. Strandlund is interred next to his wife Clara at Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN.

References

External links

Lustron Preservation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Strandlund, Carl 1899 births 1974 deaths Swedish emigrants to the United States 20th-century American inventors People from Sundsvall