Inventor Oscar Banker (Asatur Sarafian)

Oscar Banker (born Asatur Sarafian, 1895–1979) was an American inventor of Armenian origin, regarded as the “father of the automatic transmission”. He was born in the Ottoman Empire, survived the Hamidian massacres, emigrated to the USA as a teenager, settled in Chicago and changed his name.

On 18 October 1934 he filed a patent application for an automatic transmission driven by hydraulic power that required no manual clutch. General Motors began using elements of his invention in its 1940 Oldsmobile and Cadillac models. He also created the primary control system of Sikorsky’s first helicopter, a needleless injector, power steering and more; over 300 patents are registered in his name. In his memoirs he wrote: “Genius is sweat, stubbornness, absorption in detail, refusal to give up.”

The image is a collage: a helicopter numbered 445, a portrait of an elderly man in glasses, and a cutaway of an automatic transmission.