In 1865, George Owen Squier was born to Almon Justice Squier and Emily Gardner Squier. He graduated from Dryden school in 1882, then went on to teach before being appointed to West Point Military Academy in 1883. He graduated from West Point in 1887 as Second Lieutenant in the Third Artillery. While stationed at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, he was a student of physics at Johns Hopkins University. In 1903 he graduated with a degree in Doctor of Philosopy.

On September 12, 1908 he became the first passenger to fly with Orville Wright.

In 1917 he was appointed the Chief Signal Officer with the rank of Brigadier General and in the same year promoted to Major General.

On December 31, 1923 General Squier retired from the army and returned to his boyhood home in Dryden. He purchased the old mill one and a half miles south of Dryden . Tranforming it into the world's largest country club, he said that everyone was a member and there was only one rule, "members will please leave the club house and grounds as they found them."

Today, a story about altruism and Muzak. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

When I was assigned to work on communications equipment at Fort Monmouth's Squire Lab in 1954, I vaguely wondered who Squire was. Now, 44 years later, I open Invention and Technology magazine and find a 1925 photo of General George Squire, with a bowler hat, celluloid collar, and pince-nez, glowering at the photographer. Squire, it seems, was frowning over a long legal battle with AT&T.

Squire was born in 1865. He went to West Point, then devoted his life to science, engineering and the Signal Corps. He worked on electric tracking of projectiles and was an early proponent of flight. He was almost alone in supporting Goddard's rocket experiments. Squire was far more interested in science than war. A 1905 War Department memo said he seemed to have "no relish for line duties." Of his personal life we know next to nothing. Indeed, he worked with such intensity we wonder if he had a personal life.

For forty years he pioneered communication systems, especially wire-wireless systems. That meant superimposing high-frequency radio signals on low-frequency telegraph lines. That way, radio signals could be sent out without being broadcast to local receivers. The wires, unlike telephone wires, didn't have to be insulated. And the high frequency didn't interfere with telegraph signals. It was an important and revolutionary idea that's used in many ways today.

Squire did a surprising thing with his patent. The 1883 patent law let him assign it to the government so that any American citizen who wanted to could use it. When he did that, he misjudged the forces of avarice. His patent was immediately put to use by AT&T.

Then, to gain exclusive control, AT&T claimed Squire had infringed on their earlier patents. Squire had tried to share his discovery, and now he found it monopolized. He took AT&T to court (hence that grim 1925 photo). It was a legal battle he couldn't win, but as it ground on he found a new use for the technology:

In 1915 Edison had tried putting a phonograph in a cigar factory to improve production (I wonder if he played Carmen!) It seemed to work, and in 1922 Squire found that he could send radio music over power lines. He formed a company called Wired Radio and began selling canned music to businesses -- especially hotels and restaurants. He arbitrarily combined the words music and Kodak to get the catchy word Muzak. But AT&T also liked that idea, and they eventually gained control of it as well.

In the end, Squire retired to a large Michigan farm, which he freely opened up to the public for hunting, golf, and fishing. He took in 60,000 visitors a year. His generosity, which was beaten in the courts, finally found expression in this odd open-handed gesture.

Of course Muzak on elevators is hard to love. We listen to Public Radio because we want better. Still, Muzak is emblematic of Squire's recurring impulse to give something away to all of us.

I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.

(Theme music)

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Lindsay, D., The Muzak Man. American Heritage of Invention & Technology, Vol. 14, No. 2, Fall 1998, pp. 52-57.

George Owen Squier was born in Dryden, Mich., 21 March 1863 and graduated from the Military Academy in 1877. After first entering the Army as an artillery officer, Squier joined the Signal Corps, rising to Major by 1903. He commanded cable-ship Burnside during the laying of the Philippine cable from 1900 to 1902. He was appointed Chief Signal Officer of the Army 14 February 1917, and was promoted to Major General 6 October. He also served as Chief of the Army Air Service 1916 to 1918. General Squier was the author of numerous articles and papers on technical subjects, and is credited with several important inventions in the fields of radio and electronics. He took part in his later life in several international conferences on communications and attended the 1921 Washington Conference on Naval Limitations for the War Department. General Squier died 24 March l934.
 

AP-130
Displacement 17,260
Length 522'10"
Beam 71'6"
Draw 26'6"
Speed 16.5 k
Complement 356, Troop 3,823
Armament 4 5"
Class General G. O. Squier

General G. O. Squier (AP-130) was launched 11 November 1942 under Maritime Commission contract by the Kaiser Co., Richmond, Calif.; sponsored by Miss Mary Ann Somersvell; acquired 30 August 1943 and commissioned 2 October, Captain A. E. Uehlinger i n Command.

General G. O. Squier made three round-trip, troop carrying voyages out of San Francisco from 29 October 1943 to 30 March 1944 to Noumea; Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Wallis Island, Samoa, Noumea, and Honolulu respectively. Underway again from San Fr ancisco 7 April she brought troops to Noumea and Milne Bay before heading for Norfolk, where she arrived 2 June. On l July the ship departed with 3,300 troops for Italy, and debarked them at Naples. Following a voyage thence to Oran and back, General C . O. Squier joined Task Force 87 off Naples 13 August in preparation for Operation "Dragoon," the amphibious invasion of Southern France.

Arriving off Cap Camarat 15 August, she debarked her troops into waiting LCI's which put them ashore to become another deadly prong thrust deeply into Hilter's "Heartland." The next day she headed for Oran to bring nearly 3,000 troops back to the Cap Cam arat beachhead on the 30th. General G. O. Squier returned to New York 26 September with casualties and prisoners of war embarked at Naples.

From 14 October 1944 to 14 September 1945, she made 10 transatlantic troop carrying and rotation voyages: 7 from New York, 2 from Norfolk, and 1 from Boston, to ports in the United Kingdom (Plymouth, Southampton, and Avonmouth) and France (Le Havre and M arseilles. Between 20 September 1945 and 18 June 1946, six other round-trip, "Magic-Carpet" voyages out of New York at war's end brought home veterans from the Far East (Karachi, Calcutta, and Colombo) and Europe (Le Havre, Leghorn, and Bremerhaven). G eneral G. O. Squier reached Norfolk 22 June and decommissioned 10 July 1946. Returned to WSA 18 July 1946, she entered the National Defense Reserve Fleet at James River, Va. She was sold to the Bethlehem Steel Corp. 7 April 1964, converted to a genera l cargo ship, and renamed Pennmar 27 May 1965.

General G. O. Squier was awarded one battle star for World War II service.