Elisha Graves Otis

• Born: 3 August 1811
• Birthplace: Halifax, Vermont
• Died: 8 April 1861 (diphtheria)
• Best Known As: Inventor of the elevator brake

Elisha Graves Otis invented the first safe elevator system and in 1853 founded what is still the world's largest and best-known elevator manufacturing company. He grew up on a farm in Vermont, and after a few failed business ventures Otis moved to New York in 1845. He worked as a master mechanic in a bedstead factory, where he earned a reputation as an inventive tinkerer. He began working for Maize & Burns, a bed company in Yonkers, New York, in 1852 and it was there he came up with an elevator brake, a spring mechanism that would trigger teeth on the edges of the car and stop it from falling, should the hoisting cables fail. When sales dried up after his first year in business, Otis demonstrated his invention in 1854 at a fair in New York's Crystal Palace. The publicity stunt -- he was raised in an elevator and then cut the cables with an axe or saber (reports vary) -- kick-started sales and kept the Otis Elevator Company afloat. Otis died in a diphtheria epidemic in 1861, before he could witness the worldwide success of his invention. His sons, Charles and Norton, took over the business and became Otis Brothers & Company (1864) and, later, Otis Elevator Company (1898).

Otis Elevator Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Technologies Corporation since 1976, has more than 1.8 million elevators in operation worldwide... Norton Otis served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a congressman from New York (1901-03 and 1905-07).

The American manufacturer and inventor Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) was one of the inventors of the modern elevator and founded a company for their manufacture.

Elisha Otis was born near Halifax, Vt., where his father was for many years a justice of the peace and a state legislator. He received a common education in his hometown and at the age of 19 moved to Troy, N.Y., where he went into the construction trade. Poor health caused him to turn to hauling goods between Troy and Brattleboro, Vt. In a pattern that he was to repeat several times in his life, he saved enough money to start his own operation, in this case a small gristmill.

About 1845 Otis was again forced by ill health to change jobs. He moved to Albany, N.Y., where he became a master mechanic in a bedstead factory. Eventually he opened a small machine shop in that city. Again he was forced to give it up and became a master mechanic in a factory in Bergen, N.J. His son, Charles, then just 15 years old, was so proficient at machine work that he was made an engineer with the same firm.

In 1852 the firm sent Otis to Yonkers, N.Y., to supervise the installation of machinery in a new factory, and there he made some improvements in the elevator with which he was working. He showed the improvements in New York and applied for a patent on the device. The elevator consisted of a platform which was raised by a rope between two vertical posts. On the inside of each post was a rack designed to catch two pawls set in the platform frame when the lifting stopped. In 1854 it was reported that "the pawls are prevented from bearing against the racks during the upwards movement of the frame, and much friction is obviated thereby, and if the rope should break, or be loosened from the driving shaft, or disconnected from the motive power accidentally, the platform will be sustained, and no injury or accident can possibly occur, as the weight is prevented from falling."

Scientific American called the device "excellent" and said that it was "much admired" in New York. Receiving several orders for elevators, Otis again set up his own shop and with the aid of his son began their manufacture. He continued to invent and patent other devices, but his elevator business grew only slowly and was still rather small when he died, a comparatively young man. His son carried on the firm. With the growth of cities and the introduction of the apartment house and the skyscraper in the years after the Civil War, Otis elevators came to lead the field.

Further Reading

There is no adequate biography of Otis. The importance of his work for the growth of American cities is examined in Carl W. Condit, American Building Art: The Nineteenth Century (1960). See also Leroy A. Peterson, Elisah Graves Otis, 1811-1861, and His Influence upon Vertical Transportation (1945).

Elisha Graves Otis
Elisha Graves Otis
Personal information
Nationality	American
Birth date	August 3, 1811(1811-08-03)
Birth place	Halifax, Vermont, United States
Date of death	April 8, 1861 (aged 49)
Work
Significant projects	elevators

Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) invented a safety device that prevented elevators from falling if the hoisting cable broke.^[1] He worked on this device while living in Yonkers, New York in 1852, and had a finished product in 1854.

Biography

Otis was born in Halifax, Vermont to Stephen Otis, Jr. and Pheobe Glynn.^[1] He moved away from home at the age of 19, eventually settling in Troy, New York, where he lived for 5 years employed as a wagon driver. In 1834, he married Susan A. Houghton. They would have two children, Charles and Norton. Later that year, Otis suffered a terrible case of pneumonia which nearly killed him, but he earned enough money to move his wife and three year old son to the Vermont Hills on the Green River. He designed and built his own gristmill, but did not earn enough money, so he converted it into a sawmill, but still did not attract customers. Now having a second son, he started building wagons and carriages, at which he was fairly skilled. His wife later died, leaving Otis with two sons aged seven and two. At thirty-four years old, and hoping for a fresh start, he married Betsy A. Boyd and moved to Albany, New York. He got a job as a bedstead maker for Otis Tingely. He was skilled as a craftsman, and, tired of working all day to make only twelve bedsteads, he invented and patented a rail turner. It could produce bedsteads four times as fast as could be done manually, about fifty a day. His boss gave him a $500 bonus, and Otis then moved into his own business. At his leased building, he started designing a safety brake that could stop trains instantly and an automatic bread baking oven. The city of Albany then cut off his power source by diverting the stream he was using for the population's fresh water supply. In 1856, having no more use for Albany, he first moved to Bergen City, New Jersey to work as a mechanic, then to Yonkers, New York as a manager of an abandoned sawmill which he was supposed to convert into a bedstead factory. He was forty, and when he started to clean up the factory, he wondered how he could get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the factory. He heard of hoisting platforms, but they often broke, and he didn't want to take risks. He and his sons, who were also tinkerers, designed their own "safety elevator" and tested it successfully. He thought so little of it he neither patented it nor requested a bonus from his superiors for it, nor did he try to sell it. After having several sale, and after the bedstead factory declined, Otis took the opportunity to make an elevator company out of it, later called Otis Steam Elevator Works. No orders came over the next several months. Then, the 1853 New York World's Fair offered a great chance at publicity.^[2] At the New York Crystal Palace, Elisha Otis amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing cut.^[1] The rope was severed by an axeman, and the platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt. After the World's Fair, Otis received continuous orders, doubling each year. He developed different types of engines, like a three-way steam valve engine which could make the elevator transition from up, down, and to stop it rapidly. In his spare time, he designed and experimented with his old designs of bread-baking ovens and train brakes, and patented a steam plow in 1857, a rotary oven in 1858, and, with Charles, the oscillating steam engine in 1860. For the remainder of his life, all the major corporations purchased Otis's invention and recognized his genius. Otis contracted diphtheria and died on April 8, 1861 at the age of 49.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Elisha Graves Otis". Invent Now. http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/115.html. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 
2. ^ "Elisha Otis". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9057648/Elisha-Graves-Otis. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)