Frederick McKinley Jones, born May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio was an African-American inventor who was awarded 61 patents over his lifetime. After serving in the US Army during WWI, he went back to Hallock, Minnesota where he had lived prior to the war. He built a transmitter for the new radio station in town. He invented a device to combine sound with motion pictures, since the local theater could not afford the speaker system for "talkies".
About 1938, Jones designed a cooling system that made it possible to transport food over long distances without spoiling. These portable cooling units were used during WWII to preserve blood, medicine and food which were so important to army hospitals. His inventions helped save thousands of lives.
He passed away in Minneapolis in 1961. In 1977, he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1991, then President George Bush awarded the National Medal of Technology to Joseph Numero, who hired Jones in 1930, and Fred Jones, making Jones the first African-American to win the award.
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