Linus Yale

After a false start as a portrait painter, he succumbed to the lure of locks as his father had done, and became a manufacturer of bank locks. He introduced the Yale Infallible Bank Lock (1851), and with the profits of its success, set up his own shop in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. He continued his work as an inventor, developing several types of locks, including the small cylinder locks by which his name is known.