Spencer Heath

Spencer Heath (born 1876, Vienna, Virginia – died 1963, Leesburg, Virginia) was an American engineer, attorney, inventor, manufacturer, horticulturist, poet, philosopher of science and social thinker. A dissenter from the prevailing Georgist views, he pioneered the theory of proprietary governance and community in his book Citadel, Market and Altar. His grandson, Spencer Heath MacCallum, popularized and expounded on his ideas, most notably in his book The Art of Community.

Heath graduated from the Corcoran Scientific School in Washington, D.C., studying electrical and mechanical engineering. While working for the Navy Department he earned law degrees at National University Law School. In 1898 he married Johanna Maria Holm, a suffragist and friend of Susan B. Anthony. They had three daughters.

As a patent lawyer and engineering consultant his clients included Simon Lake, inventor of the even-keel-submerging submarine, and Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat-disk phonograph record. Heath helped Berliner design and build the first rotary engine blades used in helicopters. Heath founded the American Propeller Manufacturing Company in 1909 and developed and first mass-produced airplane propellers, including 70 percent of the propellers used by Americans in World War I. In 1922 he demonstrated the first engine-powered and controlled, variable and reversible pitch propeller.

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