Coventina's History Thread: New Heights in Innovation!
In 236 BCE, the Greek scientist Archimedes used his knowledge of levers to deploy beast- and slave-drawn hoists. In 1743, technicians of French King Louis XV devised a "flying chair," with pulleys and weights running down the royal chimney, to carry his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, to and from the palace's upper floors.
Elisha Otis was a descendant of American Revolutionary James Otis. Born in Vermont in 1811, Elisha Otis was Yankee ingenuity incarnate. In the 1840s, as a senior mechanic in a bedstead factory in Albany, New York, he patented a railroad safety brake, critical to quickly and safely hauling freight in and out of the factories of the Industrial Revolution.
By 1852, Otis was a master mechanic at another bedstead firm in Yonkers, New York. He began tinkering with a safety lift for its warehouse, but the company went belly-up. Otis was mulling a move to California's Gold Rush country when a furniture maker asked him to build two safety elevators. Fighting off chronically poor health, (I'm sure prospecting would not have improved it!) Otis established his own company and set to work.
Who here has ridden in an Otis Elevator?
I have! I'm sure most of you have as well, if you're into reading manufacturer's stamps and such!
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