Abstract :
Charles Franklin (“Boss”) Kettering (A´04, F´14) was the guest of honor at a luncheon given Tuesday, November 10, 1936, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., president of General Motors Corporation in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Kettering´s development and successful application of the electric starter for automobiles. The 188 other guests present constituted an unusual and impressive concentration of business, industrial, and educational leaders of national and international repute. Co-featured with Honor Guest Kettering was the evidence of his handiwork, the first commercially successful electric starter, pedestal-mounted and unveiled at the psychological moment, supplemented by an historic model of a Cadillac motor car, representing the model of 1911, to which the starter was first applied.
