Elisha Graves Otis

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Elisha Graves Otis
Patent drawing by Elisha Graves Otis

Elisha Graves Otis (born August 3, 1811 , Halifax ( Vermont ), † April 8, 1861 ) was an American master mechanic. In 1853 he invented a safety safety device for elevators , which prevented the cabin from falling, and founded the Otis Elevator Company .

Life

Elisha Graves Otis was born on a farm near Halifax, Vermont, the youngest of six children. In his early days, he made several unsuccessful attempts to start a company. However, his chronic poor health resulted in continued failure.

Ultimately, he tried his luck in 1845 with a move to Albany , New York . There he worked as a master mechanic at O. Tingley & Company , a factory for bed frames.

In 1852 Elisha Graves Otis moved to Yonkers , New York . There he installed machines for the bed frame company Maize & Burns . When he was commissioned to design a freight elevator, he began to think about how to protect against a possible rope break. He came across the answer in the form of a hard steel spring to which the suspension cable was attached. The weight of the cabin tensions the spring. When the rope breaks, the spring relaxes and engages in toothed rails that are located next to the guide rails. This catches the elevator car and holds despite the broken rope.

1854 was Otis by PT Barnum its security apparatus at the World's Fair Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in the Crystal Palace show in New York. He terrified the crowd when he ordered the rope of the platform on which Barnum was hovering high above their heads to be cut with an ax. The platform fell, but only a few inches. Then she stopped. Its revolutionary new safety brake worked and prevented the platform from falling. "All safe, gentlemen!" He announced.

With this dramatic demonstration, Otis Elevator Company , now part of United Technologies Corporation and the world's leading elevator equipment manufacturer, secured its first orders, selling twenty-seven elevators by 1856. On March 23, 1857 , the world's first passenger elevator with fall protection went into operation in the Haughwout Store in New York . The steam-powered elevator climbed the five floors in less than a minute. The invention of fall protection by Elisha Otis increased public confidence in elevators and, in addition to advances in construction technology, led to higher houses being built.

1861, after the death of Elisha Otis, his sons Charles and Norton led continues his work - in 1867 they founded Otis Brothers & Co . Elisha Graves Otis rests in Oakland Cemetery by Yonkers in Westchester County , New York .

literature

  • Andreas Bernard : The story of the elevator. About a moving place of modernity . Fischer Taschenbuch 17348, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-596-17348-5 (dissertation Bauhaus University Weimar 2005, 335 pages), p. 31 ff.

See also

  • The movie Kate & Leopold from 2001 is fictional about the invention of the elevator. Otis can be seen here as the butler, portrayed by Philip Bosco .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Today in History - September 20 - Otis and his Elevator. Retrieved April 19, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Inventors & Constructors - Elisha Graves Otis. Retrieved April 19, 2019 .


personal data
SURNAME Otis, Elisha Graves
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American inventor
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Halifax, Vermont, USA
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1861