Ethnologica Dalmatica, Vol. 22 , 2015.
Original scientific paper
Mario Puratić. Fisherman From Brač Becomes An American Inventor
Ida Jakšić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9281-0099
; Etnografski muzej Split
Abstract
Mario Puratić (usually spelled Puretic in English) was born in 1904 in Sumartin on the island of Brač, in a family of farmers and fishermen. As many of his countrymen, he left his home in 1925 to seek a better life in the United States, where he was a hard-working fisherman on large tuna purse seiners. In 1954 he invented fishing equipment that revolutionized the technology of hauling fishing nets. Puretic Power Block has a form of a pulley with a central rotating element wrapped in hard rubber. The invention is considered to be the most important one in the mechanization of purse seining. Power Block was even pictured on the reverse side of Canadian five dollar banknote issues from the 1970s. For his invention Puratić was given the National Inventor of the Year Award by the American Association for the Advancement of Invention and Innovation in 1975.
Keywords
fishing; emigrants; Brač; inventor; Puretic Power Block
Hrčak ID:
137877
URI
Publication date:
15.4.2015.
Visits: 3.987 *