Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

May. 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 83 Wko's Wko in tke Fil m ame IF your problem is extremely hard, ask Hulfish. No matter whether your are layman or professional, ask him. And no matter what the problem ! Place the broadest kind of interpretation upon those three sentences and you might expect some disappointments, but you will be fooled. David S. Hulfish is an expert at all trades — no jack. You will not be able to find his equal in your longest journey. His whole name is David Sherrill Hulfish. He got his middle name from his mother, who before marriage was Dora Sherrill, native of Tennessee. Hulfish says that his middle name serves him in three ways — first, as a constant reminder of his mother ; second, as a nom de plume ; and third, people don't ask him why he hasn't any. If you would go to the Hulfish home — for he has that, with a wife and son — you might find him seated at the piano, his right hand purling over a figuration of Auf dem Wasser zu Sing en; but his mind, like as not, would be engaged with the latest kink in color motography. His business card would say : "Thirteen years a telephone engineer — five years a solicitor of patents." He is at present chief engineer of the Canadian Machine Telephone Company, Ltd., Toronto, Canada. You have a hint of six occupations already, but this is not a tabulation. Hulfish was born May 6, 1873, in a corner of his father's printing office — that portion which served as a home. The place was Owensville, in the county of Gibson, state of Indiana. How natural then that he is a printer a proof-reader and a bookbinder. while he attended Owensville's school — there was only one school in Owensville and it was in luck to' have that. But the country weekly came out every Friday and there was always some job work to do. Before Hulfish could pull the Washington he could roll for it and wrap the single list and kick the Gordon— all of which he did. And when the Owensville school had nothing more to offer, Hulfish took some money that he had miraculously saved and went to Greencastle, where he entered the De Pauw University for the freshman year with Latin back. He spent two years at De Pauw studying mathematics, Facts and Fancies About a Man You Know or Ought to Know physics and the languages. They were the bulliest years of his life, for he could everlastingly dig into things. No attempt was made to follow the regular college course and no degree was sought. He was there to qualify for engineering work — for electrical engineering in particular. De Pauw was as good as any other place for acquiring this, for it was not taught then as it is now. And Hulfish studied then as boys do not study now, which made it possible for him to take all De Pauw had to offer in the two years that he was there. He came to Chicago, where he promptly recognized that a stenographer had more opportunity of making an engineering connection than a rawboned, lank and lean Hoosier had with only school knowledge to help him. So he bought the Pitman books and by their aid he equipped himself for a fifteen dollar a week stenographic position. It took him six weeks to do this, but he didn't miss a day's work. When you are needing an exceptionally efficient stenog. or a worldbeater typist, you might do far worse than get this man. The stenographer stunt gave him his chance to search for neeringf job, He got these things that engiwhich he found with the Central Union Telephone Company in 1896, where he engaged as assistant engineer, working under Samu€l G. McMeen, who was the company's chief. Hulfish continued in the service of the Central Union for more than five years before he broke loose and became engineer for the Company, where he designed and supervised the manufacture of telephone apparatus with particular reference to pay-stations, both for manual and automatic systems. It was during his connection with Baird that Messrs. McMeen and Miller formed their co-partnership and opened offices in the Monadnock building, and it was about then that Hulfish joined forces with them. His duties consisted of the preparation for drawings and specifications for patent applications, chiefly of inventions pertaining to telephony, and assisting his employers in the formation of opinions and in studies involving patents and apparatus. He ;nvented some things of his own while going along. An Expert at all Trades. — No Jack. a pressman, Baird Manufacturing