How an unsung black inventor

saved lives as ‘The King of Coolʼ

Frederick McKinley Jones invented a cooling unit
used in Army trucks to transport food, medicine and
blood during WWII. Jones is credited with launching
the refrigerated trucking industry.
Denise I. O'Neal | Sun-Times Feb 17, 2020, 1;51pm CST

Frederick McKinley Jones at his drafting desk. Jones was a prolific inventor who invented a cooling system used in
Army trucks in World War II to transport food, medicine and blood.
USDA/Wikimedia

As a 62-year-old African American mother and grandmother, I am

embarrassed — and should be ashamed to admit but am not — that I still
have much to learn about black history, especially when it comes to the
contributions of specific black women and men to the advancement of our
nation.

I was born at the height of the Civil Rights Era and I am old enough to
remember Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon. I watched on TV as he
said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Yet it was not until the release of the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures” that I, like
most other black Americans and most of the world, first learned of the vital
contribution made by three female African American mathematicians to our
nationʼs space program. Working for NASA, the three women worked out the
complex trajectory calculations that allowed NASA to send John Glenn into
space and bring him home safely.

Their names, for the record, were Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and
Dorothy Vaughan.
Especially during Black History Month — but really all the time — we should
be doing more to learn about and celebrate so many half-forgotten African
Americans who have left their indelible imprint on the fabric of our nation.

From a childrenʼs book, I recently discovered another such gem of a story.

“The Adventures of Pook and Boogee: The Boys Meet Mr. Jones,” by Eric R.
Anderson, is the first volume in a series of adventure stories about a
precocious preteen and his younger brother who travel through time and
meet famous people.

In this first volume, which Anderson says he wrote specifically for Black
History Month, we learn the story of Frederick McKinley Jones, a technology
pioneer whose inventions in the science of cooling and refrigeration saved
countless lives.

Jones, a veteran of World War I, invented a portable cooling system that was
used in Army trucks in World War II to safely transport food, medicine and
blood.

In 1991, three decades after his death, Jones became the first African
American to be honored with the National Medal of Technology. President
George H. W. Bush presented the medal to Jonesʼ widow at a ceremony in
the White House Rose Garden.

Jones patented his portable air cooling unit for trucks in 1938. Later, in
partnership with his former employer, James A. Numero, he co-founded
Minnesota-based U.S. Thermo Control Company, which grew into the global
cooling and refrigeration giant Thermo King Corporation. The company
today provides cooling systems for trucks, airplanes, buses and railway cars
worldwide.

Just how essential was Jonesʼ work?

When posthumously inducting him into its Hall of Fame in 1977, the
Minnesota Museum of Science & Technology credited Jones with giving
birth to the entire transport refrigeration industry.

“Jonesʼ technological breakthrough redefined the global marketplace, with

cultural reverberations felt from the worldʼs largest cities to its most isolated
villages,” Jonesʼ Hall of Fame citation states. “Consumers and distributors
could now have year-round access to products such as meat, dairy, frozen
foods and fresh produce. Temperature sensitive goods such as live poultry
could be safely transported.

“Advancements in ‘containerizationʼ options soon translated the technology

to boxcars, then to standardized refrigerated containers that could be
moved from truck to ship to plane to rail without need for unloading and re-
loading of contents.”

In 2009, Tom Berg, editor of Heavy Duty Truck magazine, crowned Jones
“The King of Cool.”

I knew nothing about Frederick McKinley Jones and, chances are, you didnʼt
either.

As someone whoʼs been around now for more than half a century, I marvel at
this.

And itʼs great to think that even when Iʼm just reading a book to my five-
year-old grandson, I can give him — and myself — a lesson in black history.

Denise I. OʼNeal is a Sun-Times editorial assistant who also periodically

writes stories for the paper.