Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.
Julia Brainerd Hall (November 11, 1859 September 4, 1926) was the sister of American scientist Charles Martin Hall. She supported him in his discovery of the Hall process for extracting aluminium from its ore. She was also a still-life painter, who exhibited at the Edgar Adams Gallery in Cleveland.
Charles Martin Hall (December 6, 1863 – December 27, 1914) was an American inventor, businessman, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron. He was one of the founders of Alcoa. Alfred E. Hunt, together with Charles Hall and a group of five other individuals – his partner at the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, George Hubbard Clapp; his chief chemist, W. S. Sample; Howard Lash, head of the Carbon Steel Company; Millard Hunsiker, sales manager for the Carbon Steel Company; and Robert Scott, a mill superintendent for the Carnegie Steel Company – raised $20,000 to launch the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which was later renamed Aluminum Company of America and shortened to Alcoa.