Adolphus Otto Backert
Adolphus Otto Backert (1876-1925)
1925 Obituary [1]
ADOLPHUS OTTO BACKERT died from heart failure on April 24, 1925, at his residence, Lake Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio.
He was born in Cleveland in 1876. He was graduated from the Central High School, and for several years attended the Western Reserve University.
After serving as political reporter on the Cleveland World, he became associate editor of Iron Trade Review and the Foundry. From 1906 to 1908 he acted as Western editor of the Iron Age, with headquarters at Chicago. Subsequently he became editor of the Foundry and also engineering editor of Iron Trade Review from 1908 to 1913. In 1913 he became vice-president and general manager of the Penton Publishing Co., and in 1924 he was elected president and general manager of that company.
He was well known throughout the foundry industry not only in the United States, but also in Europe and Australia. He rendered valuable services to the American Foundrymen's Association, serving as secretary-treasurer, president, and director, raising that Association to a position of world-wide eminence among technical organisations. He was secretary and later hon. member of the Foundry Supply Manufacturers' Association, and was also secretary of the Foundry Equipment Manufacturers' Association from its inception to the time of his death. He conceived the idea of the Allied Metals Congress held in Milwaukee in 1918.
He visited Europe in 1919 to invite foundrymen to the Inter-Allied Foundrymen's Convention and Exhibition in Philadelphia. He was the writer of a number of authoritative books and papers upon foundry practice and iron and steel activities, and was also editor of the "ABC of Iron and Steel." He was a member of numerous technical Associations, including the American Iron and Steel Institute, American Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and the American Society for Testing Materials.
He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1919.