Dr. Robert Baine Annis
1907-1999

Robert Baine Annis was born February 22, 1907 at Jackson, Indiana, the son of Elvin William Annis (1874-1944) and Mabel C.(Baine) Annis (1886-1972.

Robert's great-grandfather, Thomas Annis had settled in Dearborn County Indiana in 1821. Thomas was a veteran of the war of 1812 from New York state and it was customary at that time to award war veterans parcels of land to encourage settling of these new lands. In 1831 Thomas purchased 81 acres of land near Cincinnati, Ohio, but it appears that he never left Dearborn County, Indiana, and may have purchased the land on speculation or for one of his children. Thomas was a carpenter and farmer.
Robert's grandfather, David A. Annis grew to maturity on his father's farm. He was educated in the common schools, and from his youth had made farming his chief occupation. He married, in 1862, Mary Pearson, a daughter of Joseph and Emiline (Ayres) Pearson, natives of Hamilton County, Ohio. After his marriage David began business for himself on the old homestead, to which he had made some additions by purchase. He devoted most of his attention to general agriculture, in which he had been quite successful, owning an excellent farm in Dearborn county, besides a large tract in Pratt County, Kansas. He was regarded as one of the best farmers of the township, and in every respect an exemplary citizen. Elvin Annis was born on the farm in Lawrenceburg and after striking out on his own, married Mabel C. Baine in Doddridge Chapel in Centerville, Indiana. Elvin was a traveling salesman and sold stereoscopic viewing machines to merchants, at the time of Robert's birth, and was quite successful at his work. Mabel often joined Elvin on the road, traveling by horse and buggy throughout the Midwest. The winder of 1907 found Mabel at home awaiting the arrival of their son, Robert. With an infant at home she could no longer travel with Elvin on his selling trips and because of the difficulty associated with being away from home for extended periods of time with a baby at home, Elvin decided to seek employment closer to home.

Elvin, Mabel and two year old Robert
in front of their farm near Cambridge, IN.

They tried farming near Cambridge, Indiana for a while, and before long they moved on to Greenfield and than Indianapolis, Indiana. With no other work available, Elvin went back on the road but the strain of holding the family together proved too much and the young couple separated and divorced when Robert was still a youth. His father remarried and Robert stayed with his mother in their new home at Indianapolis, Indiana.

Robert started school in Indianapolis and soon his artistic abilities attracted the attention of his teachers and later, as a junior in high school, he won a scholarship at the John Heron Art Institute. His love affair with manual arts and fine arts continued when he began attending Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in 1921. He took a variety of classes from ceramics to architectural drawing and fell in love with the wonders of physics and chemistry. Like his art teachers, Frank Wade, head of the Chemistry and Physics department saw something special in young Bob Annis and permitted him to proceed in whatever direction his inquiring mind took him.
Sadly Bob's tenure at Shortridge was cut short. With his father unable to send support money to Mable, young Robert left high school after his first year and got a job because as he put it, " we were sort of interested in eating." At $8 a week he worked as a messenger for a bank and from there he moved to a clerical position at the Union Trust Company.
Having always been interested in science and radio, he joined the Indianapolis Radio Club in 1922 and was soon made the president. He also joined the Scientech Club founded in 1918 by his old teacher Frank Wade, D. J. Angus, Eli Lilly and a number of Indianapolis area men that hoped to promote and encourage science, technical and professional information.

Robert and his mother in 1925

Having lost his job at the Trust Company, D. J. Angus came to his rescue from a 22 cent per hour job. Angus was co-owner of the Esterline-Angus Company. They had been making magnets, but by the mid 1920's they decided to sell the company and form the Thomas and Skinner Steel Products Company. Bob was hired and worked hard at any job given him, and by 1926, was firmly established as an important and valuable employee. Although he was doing well at his job, Bob's mother and his friend D.J. Angus believed he should finish school and in 1927, at age 20, Robert Annis enrolled as a sophomore at Indianapolis's Arsenal Technical High School. By 1930 when he graduated, he had done an efficiency study of the school's steam power plant, surveyed the campus's old arsenal ground and had built a string oscillograph. During the three years that he spent at Tech High, Bob attended school in the morning, worked at Thomas and Skinner in the afternoon and ran a small business making and selling radio components, electrical apparatus and complete transmitting and receiving systems for the amateur radio trade. After graduation he rented a store at 1505 E. Michigan Street for $15 a month and started his own real business, Annis Electrical Apparatus Company. The faith that so many of his friends had shown in Robert Annis' ability and ambition had paid off. At age 23, he was ready to embark on the next stage of his remarkable career.

The Annis Electrical Apparatus Company
1505 E. Michigan St., Indianapolis, IN in 1931.

"Always Make A Product You Are Proud To Put Your Name On."

Robert Annis started his business in a difficult time. Following the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed, millions were unemployed, yet Robert pushed ahead. Full of ideas and willing to work hard, he believed he could succeed by making quality products at a reasonable price. "Always make a product you are proud to put your name on." became his bylaw and guide. Shortening the name of his business to the R.B. Annis Company, the young businessman offered a variety of radio products to customers in and aroung Indianapolis and marketed the same wares through advertisements in radio magazines nationwide. When business was slow he turned to other methods to keep his employees busy. Evene through the darkest days of the Depression, no employee was ever laid off.
It was also during this time that the United States Naval Reserve ordered a number of specialized portable C.W. (continuous wave) transmitting and receiving units. In 1932, radio station WLAP in Louisville ordered a complete broadcasting station that included all components. A few years later he helped Purdue University build one of the nation's first experimental television stations. R. B. Annis Company built all of the transmitting equipment.
During the 1930's Robert also applied his photography skills to the business of selling motion picture supplies and equipment, making films and operating a film operating library. Robert started making chemical reversal kits for developing 16mm film that cut the cost of developing the film processing cost from $5 or $6 per hundred feet of film to about 60 cents. The giant Eastman Kodak Corporation, major purveyor of the more expensive film and processing did not take kindly to young upstart Annis' competition and before long started pressuring magazines to drop the ads or lose Kodak's business. Even without the ads, word of mouth kept the orders coming in.

The ad for movie processing equipment
earned Robert the wrath of the might Eastman Kodak Corp.

During the 1930's R.B Annis Company continued to grow, expand and to produce and research new products and services. It was also being recognized by larger corporations for the quality and low priced products and Robert's ability to try anything new and innovative for his customers problems. No challenge was too big. His customers included Indianapolis Water Company, Bethlehem Steel Company and the WPA. Robert had managed to hold on and even enlarge his company during the Great Depression. By 1941, he had expanded from his original room at 1505 E. Michigan into 4 adjacent stores, with walls knocked out and doorways cut through to accommodate his various projects. The landlord decided to raise the rent and Robert decided it was once too often so he set of to find a new home for his business. He found that new home in the guise of a large mansion at 1101 N. Delaware Street. It was larger and more spacious and offered visibility for his business on one of Indianapolis's main thoroughfares. But hardly had he moved in and hung his new sign out front when World War Two moved the company into a new array of projects and products.

The R. B. Annis Company's new home in 1941

"We Think Perhaps You Can Build Us Something We Can Use."

World War Two brought dramatic changes in the operation of R.B. Annis Company. In place of radio and photography apparatus, Robert and his employees focused on magnetics and the precision balancing instruments needed in the production of a variety of rotating equipment, aircraft gun sights and other military devices.

Links
The Annis Family in the US and Canada

Robert B. Annis Water Resources Institute (AWRI) at Grand Valley State University (Michigan)

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