1. Clarence Birdseye was an American inventor, entrepreneur, and naturalist, considered the founder of the modern frozen food industry.
19 Facts About Clarence Birdseye
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One of nine children, Birdseye grew up in New York City before heading to Amherst College and began his scientific career with the US government.
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Clarence Birdseye was the sixth of nine children of Clarence Frank Birdseye, a lawyer in an insurance firm, and Ada Jane Underwood.
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From childhood, Clarence Birdseye was obsessed with natural science and with taxidermy, which he taught himself by correspondence.
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When he was fourteen, the family moved to the suburb of Montclair, New Jersey, where Clarence Birdseye graduated from Montclair High School.
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Clarence Birdseye matriculated at Amherst College, where his father and elder brother had earned degrees.
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In 1908, family finances forced Clarence Birdseye to withdraw from college after his second year.
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Clarence Birdseye was hired by the USDA, this time for a project surveying animals in the American West.
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Clarence Birdseye worked with entomologist Willard Van Orsdel King in Montana, where, in 1910 and 1911, he captured several hundred small mammals from which King removed several thousand ticks for research, isolating them as the cause of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a breakthrough.
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Clarence Birdseye purchased land at Muddy Bay, where he built a ranch for raising foxes.
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Clarence Birdseye was taught by the Inuit how to ice fish under very thick ice.
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Clarence Birdseye recognized the potential that this traditional knowledge held if it were to be employed in production since the frozen seafood sold in New York was of lower quality than the frozen fish of Labrador.
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In 1922, Clarence Birdseye conducted fish-freezing experiments at the Clothel Refrigerating Company, and then established his own company, Clarence Birdseye Seafoods Inc.
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In 1929, Clarence Birdseye sold his company and patents for $22 million to Goldman Sachs and the Postum Company, which eventually became General Foods Corporation.
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Clarence Birdseye continued to work with the company, further developing frozen food technology.
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In 1949, Clarence Birdseye won the Institute of Food Technologists' Babcock-Hart Award.
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Clarence Birdseye was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.
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Clarence Birdseye died on October 7,1956, of a heart attack at the Gramercy Park Hotel at the age of 69.
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Clarence Birdseye was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the sea off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts.