During the 1920s, the financial industry underwent a great expansion, bringing into the business many inexperienced people and new investment vehicles -- most notably the investment trust, theforerunner of the modern mutual fund.
He spent most of his final 37 years on Cape Breton, working on projects as varied as the vacuum jacket (a forerunner of the iron lung), man-carrying tetrahedral kites and, most famously, the hydrofoil.