Who Invented the Elevator?
The history of the elevator, if you define
it as a platform that can move people and
objects up and down, is actually a rather
long one.
Rudimentary elevators are known to have been
in use in ancient Rome as far back as 336
B.C., with the first reference of one built
by the talented Archimedes.
These early elevators were open cars rather
than enclosed ones, and consisted of a platform
with hoists that would enable the car to move
vertically.
The hoists were typically worked manually,
either by people or animals, though sometimes
water wheels were used.
Romans continued to use these simple elevators
for many years, usually to move water, building
materials, or other heavy items from one place
to another.
As for the dedicated passenger elevator, this
was created in the 18th century, with one
of the first used by King Louis XV in 1743.
He had an elevator constructed at Versailles
that would carry him from his apartments on
the first floor to his mistress’ apartments
on the second floor.
This elevator wasn’t much more technologically
advanced than those used in Rome.
To make it work, men stationed in a chimney
pulled on the ropes.
They called it a “flying chair.”
It wasn’t until the 1800s that elevator
technology really started to advance.
For starters, elevators no longer needed to
be worked manually.
In 1823, two British architects—Burton and
Hormer—built a steam-powered “ascending
room” to take tourists up to a platform
for a view of London.
Several years later, their invention was expanded
upon by architects Frost and Stutt who added
a belt and counter-weight to the steam power.
Soon enough, hydraulic systems began to be
created as well, using water pressure to raise
and lower the elevator car.
However, this wasn’t practical in some cases—pits
had to be dug below the elevator shaft to
enable the piston to pull back.
The higher the elevator went, the deeper the
pit had to be.
Thus, this wasn’t a viable option for taller
buildings in big cities.
So despite the hydraulic systems being somewhat
safer than steam-powered/cabled elevators,
the steam powered ones with cables and counterweights,
stuck around.
They had just one major drawback: the cables
could snap, and sometimes did, which sent
the elevator plummeting to the bottom of the
shaft, killing passengers and damaging building
materials or other items being transported.
Needless to say, no one was jumping to get
on these dangerous elevators and so passenger
elevators up to this point were largely a
novelty.
The man who solved the elevator safety problem,
making skyscrapers possible, was Elisha Otis,
who is generally known as the inventor of
the modern elevator.
In 1852, Otis came up with a design that had
a safety “brake.”
In the event that the cables broke, a wooden
frame at the top of the elevator car would
snap out and hit the walls of the shaft, stopping
the elevator in its tracks.
Otis himself demonstrated the device, which
he called a “safety hoist,” at the New
York World’s Fair in 1854, when he went
up in a make-shift elevator himself and had
the ropes cut.
Rather than plummeting to his death as the
audience thought might happen, his safety
hoist snapped out, catching the elevator within
seconds.
Needless to say, the crowd was impressed.
Otis went on to found his own elevator company,
which installed the first public elevator
in a New York building in 1874.
The Otis Elevator Company is still known today
as the world’s largest elevator manufacturer.
While the cable elevator design has remained,
many additional improvements have been made,
the most obvious of which is that elevators
now run on electricity rather than steam power,
a change that came about starting in the 1880s.
The electric elevator was patented by Alexander
Miles in 1887, though one had been built by
the German inventor Werner von Siemens in
1880.
Otis’ safety hoist wasn’t the end of safety
innovation, either.
These days, it’s virtually impossible for
an elevator to plummet and kill passengers.
There are now multiple steel cables to hold
the elevator’s weight, plus a number of
different braking systems to stop an elevator
from falling if the cables somehow snap.
If, despite all these safety measures, the
elevator does fall, there are shock absorbers
at the bottom of the shaft, making it unlikely
death will occur and reducing the possibility
of serious injury.
Bonus Facts:
• Elisha Otis is not considered to be the
inventor of the modern elevator by everyone.
Another man, Otis Tufts, patented an elevator
design that had doors that opened and closed
automatically and benches inside.
However, Tufts’ design did away with the
typical cable system because of the safety
issues, and instead used an impractical, expensive
system of threading the elevator car up a
giant screw.
Obviously, this would be prohibitively expensive
in tall buildings.
Elisha Otis’ design was much simpler (and
closer to modern designs), easier to use,
and less expensive to make, which is why he
generally gets the credit and not Tufts.
That said, the “Vertical Screw Railway”
was installed in a few buildings in New York
and Philadelphia.
• The first elevator shaft was put in a
building before Elisha Otis designed his safe,
steam powered elevator.
This was done in 1853 at the Cooper Union
Foundation building in New York.
Peter Cooper felt that elevators would be
perfected and made safe at some point in the
near future, so included it in the design
of the building.
It took a couple decades, but an elevator
was eventually installed in the shaft by Elisha
Otis’ company.
