Jacuzi

Jacuzi is a company that produces whirlpool bathtubs. Around 1900, seven brothers named jacuzi (pronounced yah-KUH-tzih) immigrated to the United States from Italy. They eventually settled on the West Coast in Berkeley, California and became machinists. One of them, Rachele (pronounced "rah-KEH-leh"), began making aircraft propellers, inspired by an airshow he saw at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in nearby San Francisco. Rachele and his brothers created an aircraft manufacturing company in Berkeley called "jacuzi Brothers", which remained in business until 1976, although their product line changed over the years.

In 1925, as a result of a crash of one of their planes in 1921 en route between Yosemite and San Francisco, which killed brother Giocondo, jacuzi Brothers stopped making aircraft. Rachele turned the company's know-how in making hydraulic aircraft pumps to the manufacture of a new kind of deep well agricultural pump.

In 1948, brother Candido used the company's expertise in pumps to develop a submersible bathtub pump for his son who had contracted rheumatoid arthritis in 1943, at the age of 15 months, which caused the boy to have chronic pain. The boy received regular hydrotherapy treatments at local hospitals but Candido could not stand to see his son suffering between the therapeutic visits. He realized that the agricultural water pumps that jacuzi Brothers were making for industrial use could be adapted to give his son soothing whirlpool treatments in the tub at home. jacuzi Brothers marketed this pump, model J-300, in 1955. The son, Kenneth jacuzi, eventually started to run the company. During this period, Jack Benny was hired as a spokesman for jacuzi.