Joshua Lionel Cowen (August 25, 1877-September 8, 1965), born Joshua Lionel Cohen, was an American inventor and the cofounder of Lionel Corporation, a manufacturer of model railroads and toy trains. The eighth of nine children of Jewish immigrants and a college dropout (he enrolled both at Columbia University and the City College of New York), Cowen received his first patent in 1899, for a device that ignited a photographer's flash. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Joshua Lionel Cowen. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Lionel_Cowen
