úPARA ¢PAR@ ` ╙TEXT ` ┼Jones, Amanda Theodosia1835╨1914poet, editor and inventorBorn on October 19, 1835, in East Bloomfield, New York, Amanda Jones grew up and attended school there and, from 1845, in Black Rock, near Buffalo. She graduated from the normal course at the East Aurora Academy in 1850 and for four years taught school. In 1854 some verses of hers were printed in the Methodist Ladies╒ Repository of Cincinnati, and she devoted herself thereafter to writing. Her work was frequently interrupted by bouts of illness and periods of convalescence and faddist courses of therapy. Her first book, Ulah, and Other Poems, appeared in 1861. During the Civil War she contributed a series of patriotic poems to Frank Leslie╒s Illustrated Newspaper, and in 1867 her second book, titled simply Poems, was published. By that time she had become a full convert to spiritualism and was convinced that she was a medium. A spirit contact having informed her that she was destined for some great work, she moved to Chicago in 1869 and for some years was associated with various periodicals. She edited the Universe, was literary editor of the Western Rural, edited the Bright Side, a children╒s magazine, and contributed to the Interior, Scribner╒s, the Century, the Outlook, Youth╒s Companion, and others. In 1872 Jones began working on an idea that had come to her for a food preserving process. In collaboration with Professor LeRoy C. Cooley of Albany, New York, she developed a process using vacuum and heated fluid, and in June and July 1873 five patents covering their work were granted, two to Cooley, one of which he assigned to her, one to them jointly, and two to her. An attempt to establish the Jones process commercially failed. In 1880 she went to the Pennsylvania oilfields to develop a liquid fuel burner for use in furnaces and boilers and in March of that year was awarded a patent. Again her attempt to commercialize her invention came to naught. For a time she operated a working women╒s home in Bradford, Pennsylvania. In 1882 she published a collection of poems as A Prairie Idyl. Back in Chicago in 1890 she organized the Woman╒s Canning and Preserving Company to exploit her process, and so far as possible she saw to it that the officers, employees, and stockholders of the company were women. A dispute with other officers in 1893 resulted in her abandoning the business and moving to Junction City, Kansas, where she continued to write and to experiment. Jones╒ books included Flowers and a Weed, 1899, Rubçiyçt of Solomon and Other Poems, 1905, Poems 1854╨1906, 1906, A Mother of Pioneers, 1908, and A Psychic Autobiography, 1910. She contributed a series of articles on her fuel burner work to Steam Engineering and Engineer journals in 1903 and 1904. She was awarded four more patents in 1903╨1906 for developments in her canning process and three others in 1904, 1912, and 1914 for valves and other refinements in her burner. She died in Junction City, Kansas, on March 31, 1914. ªstyl ` . ! ¬ 5¬ " 5¬ = !I w !I ë !I O !I d !I ╜ !I ß !I !I !I C !I K !I h !I u !I é !I ì !I ╜ !I ┼ !I ╟ !I ╤ !I ╫ !I ▐ !I Σ !I δ !I φ !I ■ !I 5¬ !I " !I 0 !I ░ 5¬ ▒ !I ╟ !I ┘ !I ß !I
