The Man Who Made Falling Safe: The Hidden History of the Elevator
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New York, 1854. A man is hoisted high on a single rope — then tells his assistant to cut it and it the elevator drops and suddenly stops. This is the hidden history of the elevator — how Elisha Otis's safety brake turned a dangerous freight hoist into passenger transport, and made the skyscraper possible. From Archimedes and the Colosseum lifts to Louis XV's flying chair, steam hoists, the 1857 Haughwout store installation, Siemens' 1880 electric elevator, the Equitable Life Building, the 1885 Home Insurance Building, and the 1913 Woolworth Building, we trace how rope, pulley and muscle became electricity and steel. You'll learn how the safety spring and toothed guide rails worked, why top floors flipped from garrets to penthouses, what the 1945 elevator operators' strike changed, how Betty Lou Oliver survived a 75-story fall in the Empire State Building, and why the door-close button is mostly placebo. But it wasn't the elevator that built the vertical city. It was the break.
Tags: history of the elevator, history of elevators, how elevators work, who invented the elevator, elisha otis, first elevator, elevator brakes, counterweight, hydraulic elevator, old elevator, elevator design, skyscrapers, hidden history, elevator system, history documentary, engineering, tech history, how it works, historical facts, invention history
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