Hudson Maxim

Born in Maine in 1853, Hudson Maxim became an American inventor, chemist, and writer whose name was closely tied to explosives technology. Reliable reference sources describe him as a major developer of smokeless powder in the United States, and note that his inventions were used extensively in the years around World War I.

Maxim's work ranged beyond the laboratory. He wrote books and articles on explosives as well as broader literary and political subjects, which helps explain why contemporaries remembered him as unusually wide-ranging in his interests. He died in New Jersey in 1927.

For listeners coming to him as an author, the interest is in that mix of technical authority and strong personal voice: he was not only a maker and experimenter, but also someone who wanted to explain, argue, and persuade on the page.