Dec. 23, 2025
Hagerstown, Indiana: The Blind Engineer Who Invented Cruise Control
In 1896, a five-year-old boy in Hagerstown, Indiana, lost his sight in a workshop accident. Doctors couldn't save his vision, and by age seven, Ralph Teetor would never see again. What happened next defied every expectation of that era—an age when blind children were typically institutionalized and trained only for basket-weaving.
Instead, Ralph's parents raised him as if nothing had changed. They let him explore the machines in his family's factory. They sent him to public school. They refused to let anyone else define what was possible for their son.
By age twelve, Ralph had built his own automobile—before Henry Ford even founded Ford Motor Company. He went on to become America's first blind engineer, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1912 after memorizing every textbook and constructing three-dimensional mental models of every diagram. He tuned Indianapolis 500 race cars by sound alone. He ran a company with 6,500 employees. And when a lawyer's jerky driving made him carsick one too many times, he invented cruise control.
This episode explores how a small-town Indiana boy who spent 86 years in darkness saw possibilities that others couldn't imagine—and created technology that now helps vehicles see the road for themselves.
Timeline of Key Events
The invention of cruise control spans nearly a century of innovation, beginning with a childhood tragedy and culminating in technology that became foundational to self-driving vehicles.
- March 20, 1896: Five-year-old Ralph Teetor injures his eye in a knife accident at his uncles' machine shop in Hagerstown, Indiana
- 1897: Sympathetic ophthalmia causes complete blindness in both eyes
- 1902: At age twelve, Ralph builds his first gasoline-powered automobile capable of 12 mph
- 1912: Graduates from University of Pennsylvania as America's first blind engineer
- 1936: Becomes president of the Society of Automotive Engineers; begins developing cruise control concept
- August 22, 1950: Receives U.S. Patent 2,519,859 for his "Speedostat" speed control device
- 1958: Chrysler introduces the technology as "Auto-Pilot" on luxury models
- 1959: Cadillac brands the technology "Cruise Control"—the name that stuck
- February 15, 1982: Ralph Teetor dies at age 91 in Hagerstown
- 1988: Posthumously inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame
- 2024: Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Historical Significance
Ralph Teetor's story matters beyond the convenience of highway driving. His life represents a fundamental challenge to how disability was understood in early twentieth-century America.
In 1896, the eugenics movement was gaining momentum across the United States. Thirty-two states would eventually pass forced sterilization laws targeting disabled people. "Ugly Laws" barred disabled individuals from public spaces. Eighty to eighty-five percent of blind Americans had no employment. The standard approach to childhood blindness was institutionalization and segregation from sighted children.
Against this backdrop, Ralph Teetor's achievements were revolutionary. He didn't just overcome personal obstacles—he redefined what was considered possible. His invention of cruise control became foundational to technologies he never lived to see: adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping systems, and autonomous vehicles. In 2012, when Google's self-driving car project conducted its first public road test, the passenger was a legally blind man named Steve Mahan. The vehicle used technology descended directly from Teetor's original patent.
The circle completed. A blind man's invention enabling other blind people to experience independent transportation.
Sources & Further Reading
This episode drew from primary historical sources and biographical accounts documenting Ralph Teetor's remarkable life and inventions.
- Marjorie Teetor Meyer, "One Man's Vision: The Life of Automotive Pioneer Ralph R. Teetor" (1995) — Biography written by Teetor's daughter, containing family records and firsthand accounts
- U.S. Patent No. 2,519,859 — "Speed Control Device for Resisting Operation of the Accelerator" (August 22, 1950), available through USPTO.gov
- National Inventors Hall of Fame Profile — Ralph Teetor's 2024 induction documentation at invent.org
- Smithsonian Magazine, "The Sightless Visionary Who Invented Cruise Control" (2018) — Feature article with grandson Ralph Meyer's recollections
- Hagerstown Exponent Archives (1896) — Contemporary newspaper accounts of Ralph's accident and subsequent treatment
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WEBVTT
00:04.013 --> 00:15.131
[SPEAKER_00]: September 1908, Philadelphia Train Station, 18-year-old Ralph Teeter stands on the platform, one suitcase in hand.
00:16.333 --> 00:18.196
[SPEAKER_00]: It contains a year's worth of clothes.
00:19.618 --> 00:25.368
[SPEAKER_00]: He's traveled alone from Hagerstown in Diana, a town of 2,000 people.
00:26.910 --> 00:27.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knows him there,
00:29.225 --> 00:30.746
[SPEAKER_00]: the streets are memorized.
00:31.667 --> 00:37.433
[SPEAKER_00]: Every building corner echoes back his location through the click of his metal tips shoes.
00:39.255 --> 00:43.539
[SPEAKER_00]: Philadelphia is chaos and familiar and charted.
00:44.720 --> 00:48.324
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph is here because the University of Michigan rejected him.
00:49.925 --> 00:57.072
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't find a way to teach
00:58.317 --> 01:05.138
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a little naively optimistic, betting everything on a school that hadn't yet said no.
01:06.620 --> 01:10.886
[SPEAKER_00]: The University of Pennsylvania Engineering Dean met with him reluctantly.
01:12.287 --> 01:14.130
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought Ralph would last two weeks.
01:15.432 --> 01:20.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was best the Dean figured, for Ralph to discover his limitations himself.
01:21.980 --> 01:23.903
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing about Ralph Teeter.
01:24.924 --> 01:26.366
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't have limitations.
01:27.407 --> 01:29.370
[SPEAKER_00]: He just had a different way of seeing.
01:31.257 --> 01:33.461
[SPEAKER_00]: welcome back friend to hometown history.
01:34.342 --> 01:41.433
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world.
01:43.036 --> 01:57.940
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters and today works blurring how a five-year-old boy who lost his sight in 1896 became America's first
02:00.265 --> 02:09.621
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a story about a boy who built an automobile at age 12, a man who tuned Indianapolis 500 race cars by sound alone.
02:10.963 --> 02:17.093
[SPEAKER_00]: An inventor whose cruise control technology became fundamental to self-driving vehicles.
02:18.271 --> 02:24.879
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's a story about what happens when parents refuse to accept anyone else's definition of possible.
02:26.401 --> 02:31.668
[SPEAKER_00]: Hagerstown, Indiana, in 1896, was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone.
02:32.629 --> 02:34.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Population, 2000.
02:35.854 --> 02:44.785
[SPEAKER_00]: The main employer, Railway, Cycle Manufacturing Company, owned by the Teter Brothers, Charles, Henry, Frank, and Joe.
02:46.098 --> 02:48.881
[SPEAKER_00]: They built petal-powered railway inspection cars.
02:50.382 --> 02:57.269
[SPEAKER_00]: When an end of stone breakers warehouse on South Washington Street, Ralph's father John worked there.
02:58.390 --> 03:05.637
[SPEAKER_00]: The family lived in town, close enough that five-year-old Ralph could wander to the shop, fascinated by the machines.
03:06.658 --> 03:11.363
[SPEAKER_00]: The sounds of steam engines, the smell of metal and machine oil,
03:12.676 --> 03:20.880
[SPEAKER_00]: By all accounts, it was an unremarkable childhood in an unremarkable town, until March 1896.
03:21.121 --> 03:26.196
[SPEAKER_00]: That afternoon changed everything.
03:27.813 --> 03:35.527
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph was playing in his uncle's machine shop, doing what kids do, exploring, poking around.
03:36.589 --> 03:38.974
[SPEAKER_00]: He was trying to pry open a drawer with a knife.
03:40.156 --> 03:41.018
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost control.
03:41.058 --> 03:43.362
[SPEAKER_00]: The blade went into his eye.
03:44.484 --> 03:46.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Cut the eyeball badly.
03:47.202 --> 03:50.208
[SPEAKER_00]: The Hakerstown exponent reported it matter effectively.
03:51.230 --> 03:57.704
[SPEAKER_00]: While playing with a knife, he in some way thrusted the blade into one of his eyes, cutting the ball badly.
03:59.267 --> 04:04.738
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors in Indianapolis performed emergency surgery in May, removed the damaged eye.
04:05.720 --> 04:08.586
[SPEAKER_00]: For a while, Ralph's good eye seemed fine.
04:09.730 --> 04:11.752
[SPEAKER_00]: his parents allowed themselves hope.
04:13.274 --> 04:21.323
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, six months later, the October 7th edition of the exponent published a headline that must have devastated them.
04:22.865 --> 04:26.589
[SPEAKER_00]: Little Ralph Teter is again threatened with total blindness.
04:28.671 --> 04:39.163
[SPEAKER_00]: The condition was sympathetic off-thalmia and exceedingly rare autoimmune response.
04:40.325 --> 04:43.070
[SPEAKER_00]: It's believed the same condition blinded Lewis Braille.
04:44.593 --> 04:48.921
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1890's Royal Indiana, medical options were quite limited.
04:50.184 --> 04:52.989
[SPEAKER_00]: No penicillin, no antibiotics.
04:54.472 --> 05:02.046
[SPEAKER_00]: The only effective treatment was preventative enucleation, surgical removal of the injured eye within two weeks.
05:03.359 --> 05:07.791
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time doctors understood what was happening to Ralph, it was too late.
05:09.255 --> 05:13.146
[SPEAKER_00]: By age 6 or 7, Ralph's vision was practically gone.
05:14.509 --> 05:15.833
[SPEAKER_00]: He would never see again.
05:17.500 --> 05:23.710
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph's parents, John and Kate Teter, made a choice that would define their son's life.
05:24.811 --> 05:34.166
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Ralph's daughter, Marjorie, who wrote her father's biography in 1995, essentially they lived their lives as if Ralph could see normally.
05:35.548 --> 05:40.015
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was never mentioned unless circumstances made it absolutely necessary.
05:41.311 --> 05:46.222
[SPEAKER_00]: To understand how radical this was, you need to know 1896 America.
05:47.564 --> 06:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: The era's typical approach to childhood blindness, institutionalization, segregation from sighted children, training only for low-skilled work, like basketball weaving.
06:01.848 --> 06:04.653
[SPEAKER_00]: This was the beginning of America's eugenics movement.
06:05.955 --> 06:11.986
[SPEAKER_00]: 32 states would eventually pass forced sterilization laws targeting disabled people.
06:12.006 --> 06:18.237
[SPEAKER_00]: Ugly laws barred disabled people from public spaces in cities like Chicago.
06:19.432 --> 06:23.061
[SPEAKER_00]: 80 to 85% of blind people had no jobs.
06:24.224 --> 06:26.871
[SPEAKER_00]: John and Kate Teter took a different path.
06:28.034 --> 06:31.844
[SPEAKER_00]: They raised Ralph with his cousins, sent him to public school.
06:32.747 --> 06:35.213
[SPEAKER_00]: Light him explore machines in the family shop.
06:36.526 --> 06:39.190
[SPEAKER_00]: any parent would understand the courage that took.
06:40.872 --> 06:48.944
[SPEAKER_00]: By age 10, Ralph had memorized every street in Hager's town, every building, every fence.
06:48.964 --> 07:04.828
[SPEAKER_00]: He navigated by sound, his metal tips shoes, clicking off surfaces, hold him exactly where he was, like echo location.
07:08.386 --> 07:10.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph learned mechanics through his hands.
07:11.930 --> 07:15.293
[SPEAKER_00]: By age 10, he could take a part and reassemble engines.
07:16.134 --> 07:21.219
[SPEAKER_00]: By touch, by memory, by understanding the logic of how machines worked.
07:22.720 --> 07:25.703
[SPEAKER_00]: At age 12, Ralph teeter built an automobile.
07:26.944 --> 07:28.246
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's it for a moment.
07:29.287 --> 07:34.512
[SPEAKER_00]: 1903, Henry Ford hadn't even founded four motor company yet.
07:34.812 --> 07:44.267
[SPEAKER_00]: The Wright brothers' first flight was still months away, and a blind 12-year-old boy in Hagerstown, Indiana, was building a car.
07:45.769 --> 07:53.542
[SPEAKER_00]: The New York-Herald ran a story about him in December 1902, called him the Wiz prodigy of Hagerstown.
07:54.844 --> 08:00.533
[SPEAKER_00]: The Cincinnati and Quire were claimed him the youngest successful electrician in the world.
08:01.778 --> 08:17.070
[SPEAKER_00]: by all accounts, Ralph was mechanically brilliant, but what made him remarkable wasn't just technical skill, it was how he saw the world, or rather how he didn't need to see it to understand it.
08:18.856 --> 08:21.440
[SPEAKER_00]: which brings us back to September 1908.
08:22.982 --> 08:26.607
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter, standing on that Philadelphia platform.
08:28.090 --> 08:32.817
[SPEAKER_00]: The University of Pennsylvania Engineering Dean told him he'd last two weeks.
08:33.818 --> 08:36.802
[SPEAKER_00]: To be fair, the Dean had legitimate concerns.
08:37.744 --> 08:41.169
[SPEAKER_00]: Engineering Education in 1908 was heavily visual.
08:41.990 --> 08:48.019
[SPEAKER_00]: Blue Prince, diagrams, technical drawings.
08:49.231 --> 08:53.658
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, Ralph had been solving that problem his entire life.
08:55.140 --> 08:57.583
[SPEAKER_00]: He brought a secretary with him to Philadelphia.
08:58.625 --> 09:04.353
[SPEAKER_00]: The secretary would retext books and assignments allowed, Ralph memorized everything.
09:05.575 --> 09:14.428
[SPEAKER_00]: Technical specifications, mathematical formulas, mechanical principles, all of it stored in his mind.
09:14.408 --> 09:18.755
[SPEAKER_00]: For drawings and diagrams, Ralph created a system.
09:20.016 --> 09:25.405
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd have descriptions read to him, then he construct three-dimensional mental models.
09:26.747 --> 09:34.999
[SPEAKER_00]: He could rotate these models in his mind, examine them from different angles, understand how parts fit together.
09:34.979 --> 09:39.008
[SPEAKER_00]: Folks at the University didn't quite know what to make of them.
09:39.990 --> 09:46.525
[SPEAKER_00]: This blind student who could visualize complex machinery better than most sided engineers
09:48.293 --> 09:53.361
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine for a moment trying to assemble furniture without looking at the instructions.
09:54.523 --> 09:59.571
[SPEAKER_00]: Just having someone read the steps aloud while you keep your eyes closed.
10:01.134 --> 10:11.010
[SPEAKER_00]: Picture trying to figure out which piece goes where, how the tabs align, where this
10:12.155 --> 10:26.858
[SPEAKER_00]: Now imagine doing all of that with an entire engineering degree, every blueprint, every technical drawing, every mechanical system, Ralph did exactly that for four years.
10:28.040 --> 10:33.268
[SPEAKER_00]: He graduated in 1912, America's first blind engineer.
10:36.674 --> 10:46.749
[SPEAKER_00]: After graduation, Ralph returned to Indiana, joined the family business, perfect circle company, which manufactured piston rings.
10:48.011 --> 10:56.404
[SPEAKER_00]: By the 1930s he was running a company with 6,500 employees, one of the largest manufacturers in Indiana.
10:57.380 --> 11:00.103
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph became active in automotive engineering.
11:01.163 --> 11:13.054
[SPEAKER_00]: President of this Society of Automotive Engineers in 1936, he couldn't drive himself, obviously, but he understood automobiles better than most people who could.
11:14.336 --> 11:26.627
[SPEAKER_00]: He worked on Indianapolis 500 race cars, tuned engines by sound alone.
11:26.607 --> 11:29.751
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ralph had a reoccurring problem.
11:30.813 --> 11:34.458
[SPEAKER_00]: His chauffeur, not that the chauffeur was incompetent.
11:35.038 --> 11:35.899
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite the opposite.
11:37.021 --> 11:38.483
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was how he drove.
11:39.404 --> 11:42.528
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd speed up, slow down, speed up again.
11:43.349 --> 11:50.539
[SPEAKER_00]: The constant acceleration and deceleration made Ralph motion sick, every single trip.
11:51.987 --> 11:55.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people would have just asked the driver to maintain steady speed.
11:56.880 --> 12:00.851
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter invented a machine to do it automatically.
12:02.636 --> 12:07.971
[SPEAKER_00]: During the 1940s, Ralph developed what he called a speed control device.
12:09.183 --> 12:17.281
[SPEAKER_00]: The basic concept was elegant, a mechanism that would maintain constant vehicle speed without driver input.
12:18.624 --> 12:22.613
[SPEAKER_00]: The system used a centrifugal governor connected to the drive shaft.
12:23.715 --> 12:28.305
[SPEAKER_00]: When speed increased beyond the set point, the governor would reduce throttle.
12:29.348 --> 12:36.696
[SPEAKER_00]: When speed decreased, it would increase throttle, automatic adjustment, maintaining steady velocity.
12:38.117 --> 12:50.291
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 22nd, 1950, Ralph received U.S. patent, 2,519,859, the modern cruise control.
12:52.373 --> 12:57.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Picture those old steam engine governors, spinning metal balls on arms,
12:58.407 --> 13:02.914
[SPEAKER_00]: As the engine speeds up, centrifugal forces push the balls outward.
13:04.076 --> 13:11.808
[SPEAKER_00]: That outward movement triggers a valve that reduces steam, slowing the engine, self-regulating, automatic feedback.
13:12.889 --> 13:18.178
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph adapted that 19th century principle for 20th century automobiles.
13:19.400 --> 13:26.811
[SPEAKER_00]: A blind engineer understanding machines through logic and mechanical sympathy.
13:28.377 --> 13:40.075
[SPEAKER_00]: Chrysler introduced the technology as autopilot in 1958, initially quite expensive, $86 dollars, about $1,000 in today's money.
13:41.050 --> 13:46.455
[SPEAKER_00]: But by the 1970s, cruise control became standard on most American cars.
13:47.677 --> 13:50.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Today virtually every vehicle has it.
13:51.080 --> 14:03.152
[SPEAKER_00]: And Ralph Teters, basic speed maintenance principle, became foundational to adaptive cruise control, to lane keeping systems, to self-driving car technology.
14:04.414 --> 14:08.678
[SPEAKER_00]: A blind man invented technology that lets cars see the road.
14:10.632 --> 14:23.926
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter held more than 40 patents, contributed to everything from piston-ring manufacturing to automated machinery, remained active and automotive engineering into his 70s.
14:25.408 --> 14:28.931
[SPEAKER_00]: He also co-founded what became the National Federation of the Blind.
14:30.052 --> 14:36.319
[SPEAKER_00]: He believed blind people could do anything cited people could, his own life proved it.
14:37.683 --> 14:48.925
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2012, Google self-driving car project invited a legally blind man named Steve Mahan to take the first autonomous vehicle test drive on public roads.
14:50.052 --> 14:58.887
[SPEAKER_00]: The car used adaptive cruise control, technology descended directly from Ralph Teter's original patent to navigate safely.
14:58.927 --> 15:08.483
[SPEAKER_00]: The circle completed, a blind man's invention enabling other blind people to experience independent transportation.
15:09.863 --> 15:15.091
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph died February 15, 1982, at age 91.
15:16.714 --> 15:23.384
[SPEAKER_00]: He spent 86 years in darkness, but he saw possibilities others couldn't imagine.
15:26.749 --> 15:29.514
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story.
15:30.295 --> 15:34.842
[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight is the blind visionary who saw what others couldn't.
15:35.260 --> 15:39.691
[SPEAKER_00]: If this story made you think differently about what's possible, share it.
15:40.693 --> 15:47.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Text a friend, post about it, help prove that every hometown has a story worth preserving.
15:48.713 --> 15:49.455
[SPEAKER_00]: Good night, friend.
00:04.013 --> 00:15.131
[SPEAKER_00]: September 1908, Philadelphia Train Station, 18-year-old Ralph Teeter stands on the platform, one suitcase in hand.
00:16.333 --> 00:18.196
[SPEAKER_00]: It contains a year's worth of clothes.
00:19.618 --> 00:25.368
[SPEAKER_00]: He's traveled alone from Hagerstown in Diana, a town of 2,000 people.
00:26.910 --> 00:27.912
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knows him there,
00:29.225 --> 00:30.746
[SPEAKER_00]: the streets are memorized.
00:31.667 --> 00:37.433
[SPEAKER_00]: Every building corner echoes back his location through the click of his metal tips shoes.
00:39.255 --> 00:43.539
[SPEAKER_00]: Philadelphia is chaos and familiar and charted.
00:44.720 --> 00:48.324
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph is here because the University of Michigan rejected him.
00:49.925 --> 00:57.072
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't find a way to teach
00:58.317 --> 01:05.138
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a little naively optimistic, betting everything on a school that hadn't yet said no.
01:06.620 --> 01:10.886
[SPEAKER_00]: The University of Pennsylvania Engineering Dean met with him reluctantly.
01:12.287 --> 01:14.130
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought Ralph would last two weeks.
01:15.432 --> 01:20.558
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was best the Dean figured, for Ralph to discover his limitations himself.
01:21.980 --> 01:23.903
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing about Ralph Teeter.
01:24.924 --> 01:26.366
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't have limitations.
01:27.407 --> 01:29.370
[SPEAKER_00]: He just had a different way of seeing.
01:31.257 --> 01:33.461
[SPEAKER_00]: welcome back friend to hometown history.
01:34.342 --> 01:41.433
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world.
01:43.036 --> 01:57.940
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters and today works blurring how a five-year-old boy who lost his sight in 1896 became America's first
02:00.265 --> 02:09.621
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a story about a boy who built an automobile at age 12, a man who tuned Indianapolis 500 race cars by sound alone.
02:10.963 --> 02:17.093
[SPEAKER_00]: An inventor whose cruise control technology became fundamental to self-driving vehicles.
02:18.271 --> 02:24.879
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's a story about what happens when parents refuse to accept anyone else's definition of possible.
02:26.401 --> 02:31.668
[SPEAKER_00]: Hagerstown, Indiana, in 1896, was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone.
02:32.629 --> 02:34.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Population, 2000.
02:35.854 --> 02:44.785
[SPEAKER_00]: The main employer, Railway, Cycle Manufacturing Company, owned by the Teter Brothers, Charles, Henry, Frank, and Joe.
02:46.098 --> 02:48.881
[SPEAKER_00]: They built petal-powered railway inspection cars.
02:50.382 --> 02:57.269
[SPEAKER_00]: When an end of stone breakers warehouse on South Washington Street, Ralph's father John worked there.
02:58.390 --> 03:05.637
[SPEAKER_00]: The family lived in town, close enough that five-year-old Ralph could wander to the shop, fascinated by the machines.
03:06.658 --> 03:11.363
[SPEAKER_00]: The sounds of steam engines, the smell of metal and machine oil,
03:12.676 --> 03:20.880
[SPEAKER_00]: By all accounts, it was an unremarkable childhood in an unremarkable town, until March 1896.
03:21.121 --> 03:26.196
[SPEAKER_00]: That afternoon changed everything.
03:27.813 --> 03:35.527
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph was playing in his uncle's machine shop, doing what kids do, exploring, poking around.
03:36.589 --> 03:38.974
[SPEAKER_00]: He was trying to pry open a drawer with a knife.
03:40.156 --> 03:41.018
[SPEAKER_00]: He lost control.
03:41.058 --> 03:43.362
[SPEAKER_00]: The blade went into his eye.
03:44.484 --> 03:46.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Cut the eyeball badly.
03:47.202 --> 03:50.208
[SPEAKER_00]: The Hakerstown exponent reported it matter effectively.
03:51.230 --> 03:57.704
[SPEAKER_00]: While playing with a knife, he in some way thrusted the blade into one of his eyes, cutting the ball badly.
03:59.267 --> 04:04.738
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors in Indianapolis performed emergency surgery in May, removed the damaged eye.
04:05.720 --> 04:08.586
[SPEAKER_00]: For a while, Ralph's good eye seemed fine.
04:09.730 --> 04:11.752
[SPEAKER_00]: his parents allowed themselves hope.
04:13.274 --> 04:21.323
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, six months later, the October 7th edition of the exponent published a headline that must have devastated them.
04:22.865 --> 04:26.589
[SPEAKER_00]: Little Ralph Teter is again threatened with total blindness.
04:28.671 --> 04:39.163
[SPEAKER_00]: The condition was sympathetic off-thalmia and exceedingly rare autoimmune response.
04:40.325 --> 04:43.070
[SPEAKER_00]: It's believed the same condition blinded Lewis Braille.
04:44.593 --> 04:48.921
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1890's Royal Indiana, medical options were quite limited.
04:50.184 --> 04:52.989
[SPEAKER_00]: No penicillin, no antibiotics.
04:54.472 --> 05:02.046
[SPEAKER_00]: The only effective treatment was preventative enucleation, surgical removal of the injured eye within two weeks.
05:03.359 --> 05:07.791
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time doctors understood what was happening to Ralph, it was too late.
05:09.255 --> 05:13.146
[SPEAKER_00]: By age 6 or 7, Ralph's vision was practically gone.
05:14.509 --> 05:15.833
[SPEAKER_00]: He would never see again.
05:17.500 --> 05:23.710
[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph's parents, John and Kate Teter, made a choice that would define their son's life.
05:24.811 --> 05:34.166
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Ralph's daughter, Marjorie, who wrote her father's biography in 1995, essentially they lived their lives as if Ralph could see normally.
05:35.548 --> 05:40.015
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was never mentioned unless circumstances made it absolutely necessary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To understand how radical this was, you need to know 1896 America.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The era's typical approach to childhood blindness, institutionalization, segregation from sighted children, training only for low-skilled work, like basketball weaving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was the beginning of America's eugenics movement.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 32 states would eventually pass forced sterilization laws targeting disabled people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ugly laws barred disabled people from public spaces in cities like Chicago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 80 to 85% of blind people had no jobs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: John and Kate Teter took a different path.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They raised Ralph with his cousins, sent him to public school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Light him explore machines in the family shop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: any parent would understand the courage that took.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By age 10, Ralph had memorized every street in Hager's town, every building, every fence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He navigated by sound, his metal tips shoes, clicking off surfaces, hold him exactly where he was, like echo location.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph learned mechanics through his hands.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By age 10, he could take a part and reassemble engines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By touch, by memory, by understanding the logic of how machines worked.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At age 12, Ralph teeter built an automobile.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that's it for a moment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 1903, Henry Ford hadn't even founded four motor company yet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Wright brothers' first flight was still months away, and a blind 12-year-old boy in Hagerstown, Indiana, was building a car.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The New York-Herald ran a story about him in December 1902, called him the Wiz prodigy of Hagerstown.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Cincinnati and Quire were claimed him the youngest successful electrician in the world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: by all accounts, Ralph was mechanically brilliant, but what made him remarkable wasn't just technical skill, it was how he saw the world, or rather how he didn't need to see it to understand it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: which brings us back to September 1908.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter, standing on that Philadelphia platform.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The University of Pennsylvania Engineering Dean told him he'd last two weeks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To be fair, the Dean had legitimate concerns.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Engineering Education in 1908 was heavily visual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Blue Prince, diagrams, technical drawings.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, Ralph had been solving that problem his entire life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He brought a secretary with him to Philadelphia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The secretary would retext books and assignments allowed, Ralph memorized everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Technical specifications, mathematical formulas, mechanical principles, all of it stored in his mind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For drawings and diagrams, Ralph created a system.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd have descriptions read to him, then he construct three-dimensional mental models.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He could rotate these models in his mind, examine them from different angles, understand how parts fit together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Folks at the University didn't quite know what to make of them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This blind student who could visualize complex machinery better than most sided engineers
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[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine for a moment trying to assemble furniture without looking at the instructions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just having someone read the steps aloud while you keep your eyes closed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Picture trying to figure out which piece goes where, how the tabs align, where this
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now imagine doing all of that with an entire engineering degree, every blueprint, every technical drawing, every mechanical system, Ralph did exactly that for four years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He graduated in 1912, America's first blind engineer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After graduation, Ralph returned to Indiana, joined the family business, perfect circle company, which manufactured piston rings.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By the 1930s he was running a company with 6,500 employees, one of the largest manufacturers in Indiana.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph became active in automotive engineering.
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[SPEAKER_00]: President of this Society of Automotive Engineers in 1936, he couldn't drive himself, obviously, but he understood automobiles better than most people who could.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He worked on Indianapolis 500 race cars, tuned engines by sound alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But Ralph had a reoccurring problem.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His chauffeur, not that the chauffeur was incompetent.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Quite the opposite.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was how he drove.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd speed up, slow down, speed up again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The constant acceleration and deceleration made Ralph motion sick, every single trip.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Most people would have just asked the driver to maintain steady speed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter invented a machine to do it automatically.
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[SPEAKER_00]: During the 1940s, Ralph developed what he called a speed control device.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The basic concept was elegant, a mechanism that would maintain constant vehicle speed without driver input.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The system used a centrifugal governor connected to the drive shaft.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When speed increased beyond the set point, the governor would reduce throttle.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When speed decreased, it would increase throttle, automatic adjustment, maintaining steady velocity.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On August 22nd, 1950, Ralph received U.S. patent, 2,519,859, the modern cruise control.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Picture those old steam engine governors, spinning metal balls on arms,
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[SPEAKER_00]: As the engine speeds up, centrifugal forces push the balls outward.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That outward movement triggers a valve that reduces steam, slowing the engine, self-regulating, automatic feedback.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph adapted that 19th century principle for 20th century automobiles.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A blind engineer understanding machines through logic and mechanical sympathy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Chrysler introduced the technology as autopilot in 1958, initially quite expensive, $86 dollars, about $1,000 in today's money.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But by the 1970s, cruise control became standard on most American cars.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today virtually every vehicle has it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Ralph Teters, basic speed maintenance principle, became foundational to adaptive cruise control, to lane keeping systems, to self-driving car technology.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A blind man invented technology that lets cars see the road.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph Teeter held more than 40 patents, contributed to everything from piston-ring manufacturing to automated machinery, remained active and automotive engineering into his 70s.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He also co-founded what became the National Federation of the Blind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He believed blind people could do anything cited people could, his own life proved it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In 2012, Google self-driving car project invited a legally blind man named Steve Mahan to take the first autonomous vehicle test drive on public roads.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The car used adaptive cruise control, technology descended directly from Ralph Teter's original patent to navigate safely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The circle completed, a blind man's invention enabling other blind people to experience independent transportation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Ralph died February 15, 1982, at age 91.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He spent 86 years in darkness, but he saw possibilities others couldn't imagine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tonight is the blind visionary who saw what others couldn't.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If this story made you think differently about what's possible, share it.
15:40.693 --> 15:47.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Text a friend, post about it, help prove that every hometown has a story worth preserving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Good night, friend.
