John T. Ryan, Sr. contributed immeasurably to the development of coal mine safety during the first half of the 20th century. John Ryan was instrumental in developing the Edison Electric Cap Lamp, which eliminated the open-flame lamps that caused methane explosions, and in instituting procedures for the use of rock dust in coal mines to prevent dust explosions. In 1914, John Ryan and George H. Deike, Sr.,formed the Mine Safety Appliances Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their company would become the largest mine safety equipment supplier in the world.
John Ryan, the son of a mine superintendent, was born in Dudley, Pennsylvania and went to work in the coal mines at age 12, first as a trapper boy and then as a mule driver. He saved his money and attended Penn State University, where he received his mining engineering degree in 1908. In 1910, John Ryan joined the U.S. Bureau of Mines, where he spent much of his time in mine rescue operations and where he began to formulate a vision of a company whose mission would be to manufacture equipment to prevent mine disasters. He then received an assignment from the Navy Department to investigate the Matanuska coal fields in Alaska.
On returning from Alaska, John Ryan and a Bureau colleague, George Deike, discovered that they shared similar ideas about products and technology needed to prevent coal mine disasters. They acted on their convictions and formed the Mine Safety Appliances Company. While John Ryan and George Deike were united in their efforts to improve mine safety and build their company, John Ryan’s many technological and scientific contributions were unique. These many contributions were recognized nine years after his death by his former colleagues, when they named a new Mine Safety Appliances research facility the John T. Ryan, Sr. Memorial Laboratory.
An early objective of the Mine Safety Appliances Company was the elimination of open-flame lamps used by underground miners. John Ryan approached Thomas Edison to persuade him to redesign his electric battery into a package small enough to be worn by miners. He then worked closely with Edison to develop the new battery and electric lamp that greatly reduced fatal explosions in coal mines.
John Ryan helped establish effective rock dusting methods to suppress dust explosions in coal mines and promoted these methods as a means of eliminating the explosion hazard. This work was paramount in the wholesale reduction of explosions in U.S. coal mines after 1910.
At the time of his death in 1941, John T. Ryan, Sr. was President of Mine Safety Appliances Company. His work had contributed greatly to establishing a new era in mining, where miners worked in much greater safety and where their welfare was of primary concern to their employers. The countless lives saved by technology and equipment developed by John Ryan are unquestionably his greatest contribution to mankind.
