James Smith "Mac" McDonnell (April 9, 1899 – August 22, 1980) was an American aviator, engineer, and businessman. He was an

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

pioneer and founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, later

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own ...

(which is now

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

, after the latter's company merger in 1997), and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

Early life

Born in Denver, Colorado, McDonnell was of Scottish descent and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and graduated from Little Rock High School in 1917. He was a graduate of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

class of 1921, and earned a Master's of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT in 1925. While attending MIT he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity. After graduating from MIT, he was hired by Thomas Towle for the Stout Metal Airplane Division of the Ford Motor Company. In 1927, he was hired by the Hamilton Metalplane Company to develop similar metal monoplanes. He then went on to Huff Daland Airplane Company.

Career

In 1928, McDonnell left Huff Daland and set up J.S. McDonnell & Associates, and with the help of two other engineers, McDonnell set out to design his first aircraft with his company name. This aircraft then competed in a safe airplane contest which was sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics and which offered a $100,000 prize for the winning entry. His design was the Doodle Bug. After the failure of the Doodle Bug to win the contest (the Curtiss Tanager won) or any commercial orders due to the Great Depression, he dissolved his firm and worked for the

Great Lakes Aircraft Company Great Lakes Aircraft Company is an aircraft manufacturer known for the 2T-1A Sport Trainer biplane. The company has a long history of building both private and military aircraft. Origins In 1929, the Great Lakes Aircraft Company (GLAC) was for ...

in 1931 before he was hired as an engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company. McDonnell resigned from Martin in

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

and founded McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in 1939. Headquartered in St. Louis, the company quickly grew into a principal supplier of

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy—including the F-4 Phantom II—and built the Mercury and Gemini space capsules. S65-20428

In 1967, McDonnell Aircraft merged with the Douglas Aircraft Company to create

. Later that year Douglas Aircraft Company's space and missiles division became part of a new subsidiary called McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, located in Huntington Beach,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, producing the

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

series of launch vehicles. The new combined company also developed the F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet fighters. He served as chairman of the United Nations Association of the United States, and in 1958 his company became the first organization in the world to celebrate United Nations Day as a paid holiday. In 1980 McDonnell was awarded the NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. He was succeeded as Chair of McDonnell Douglas by his nephew Sanford N. McDonnell in 1980. McDonnell Douglas and Boeing consolidated in 1997.

Personal life

James McDonnell was married twice. His first marriage, to Mary Elizabeth Finney, took place in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 1934. They had two children, James Smith McDonnell, III, born January 28, 1936, and John Finney McDonnell, born March 18, 1938. Mary McDonnell died on July 6, 1949. He married Priscilla Brush Forney on April 1, 1956, and adopted her three children from a previous marriage. McDonnell died of a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

on August 22, 1980. He was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Legacy

McDonnell founded the James S. McDonnell Foundation in 1950, which supports scientific, educational, and charitable causes on a local, national, and international level. The ''McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences'' is named after him, which he co-founded - established in 1974. McDonnell Hall, housing part of the physics department at his alma mater, Princeton, also bears his name and an airplane-inspired design. The six James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professorships at Princeton University were established by a gift from the James S. McDonnell Foundation in memory of James S. McDonnell. Among the Princeton faculty members who have held the professorship are Val Fitch, Joseph Taylor, Anne Treisman, Curtis G. Callan, Lyman A. Page, Eddie S. Glaude, and numerous others.

Tributes

McDonnell Park in St. Louis County is named in honor of James Smith McDonnell, as are the McDonnell Planetarium of the

Saint Louis Science Center The Saint Louis Science Center, founded as a planetarium in 1963, is a collection of buildings including a science museum and planetarium in St. Louis, Missouri, on the southeastern corner of Forest Park (St. Louis, Missouri), Forest Park. With o ...

in Forest Park, the James S. McDonnell classroom and laboratory building at Princeton University, the James S. McDonnell Hall at Washington University in St. Louis, and James S. McDonnell Boulevard and James S. McDonnell Prologue Room near St. Louis Lambert International Airport. The Arkansas Aviation Historical Society selected McDonnell in 1980 as one of five initial inductees in the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame. McDonnell was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1977.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcdonnell, James Smith 1899 births 1980 deaths American aerospace businesspeople American aerospace designers American aerospace engineers Burials at Bellefontaine Cemetery Businesspeople in aviation Collier Trophy recipients Little Rock Central High School alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni McDonnell Douglas people People from Ladue, Missouri Princeton University alumni American people of Scottish descent 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American businesspeople Washington University in St. Louis people Delta Upsilon members