Edward Atkinson

Edward Atkinson (February 10, 1827 - December 11, 1905) was an economist, inventor, and a founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League. Edward Atkinson was born in Brookline, Massachusetts and educated in private schools. He received a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College and an LL.D. from the University of South Carolina. In the decade before the Civil War, Atkinson was a successful entrepreneur as an executive of some of the leading cotton mills of New England. Later, he was President of Boston Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Company and the Mutual Boiler Insurance Company of Boston. Atkinson married Mary Caroline Heath in 1855; they had 9 children, 7 of whom survived to adulthood. One of his sons, Robert Whitman Atkinson (1868-1934) was a musician and composer best known for composing "The Party at Odd Fellows Hall", a popular waltz of the 1890s, to words by J. Wendell Jr. In 1886 Atkinson invented an improved kitchen stove known as the "Aladdin cooker," a slow-cooking device that used a minimal power input, akin to the principle employed by the modern crock pot.