28240. Buker, Commander George E., THE METAL LIFE CAR- The Inventor, the Impostor, and the Business of Lifesaving. University of Alabama Press. 2008. DJ. 224p, 17 illustrations. This title presents the fascinating story of American ingenuity and its struggle against bureaucracy and chicanery. For centuries sailing vessels crept along the coastline, ready to flee ashore in case of danger or trouble; this worked well until weather or poor sailing drove these ships against an unforgiving coast. Joseph Francis, born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1801, was an inventor who also had the ability to organize a business to produce his inventions and the salesmanship to sell his products. His metal lifeboats, first used in survey expeditions in Asia Minor and Central America, came into demand among the world’s merchant marine, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Revenue Service. His corrugated “life car” would become an important tool of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. The metal boats also played an important role in the Third Seminole War in Florida. Francis’ metal pontoon army wagons served in the trans-Mississippi campaigns against the Indians. In Europe, he was acclaimed as a genius and sold patent rights to shipyards in Liverpool and the Woolwich Arsenal in England, Le Havre seaport in France, in the free city of Hamburg, and in the Russian Empire. But while Francis was busy in Europe, Captain Douglass Ottinger, U.S. Revenue Marine Service, claimed to be the inventor of Francis’ life car and obtained support in the U.S. Congress and the Patent Office for his claim. Francis had to battle for decades to prove his rights, and Americans remained generally unfamiliar with his devices, thereby condemning Civil War armies to inferior copies while Europe was using, and acclaiming, his inventions. Long awaited account of the work of this important life-saving equipment inventor. (M). $29.95.