The Maxim Machine Gun and Smokeless Powder
Written by Andrea Dragon, Ph.D. Andrea investigates and writes about New Jersey's industrial history. Professor Dragon will be teaching a continuing education course on "New Jersey's Explosive History" at Rutgers - New Brunswick. For details, see the fall catalog at olliru.rutgers.edu . The course is described on page 31. Hiram Maxim and his machine gun Hiram and Hudson Maxim: Inventors of the Machine Gun and Developers of Smokeless Powder New Jersey's eccentrically brilliant brothers, Hudson Maxim (1853-1927) and his cantankerous, womanizing older brother Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840-1916) were both born into a poor, rural Maine family. Hudson claimed receiving his first shoes when he was sixteen. He rarely attended school and was self-taught. Astonishingly, Hudson Maxim's earliest claim to fame was as the author of a popular "teach yourself" book on penmanship. He also possessed a breathtakingly large ego, once bragging that he could write an ar