How was the fan invented?

Answer 1

The earliest electric fans appeared in the early 1880's. The fan was basically a blade attached to an electric motor. The development of the fields of Electrical Engineering and Aeronautical Engineering paralleled each other in the industry of electric fans.

The early electric motors were bipolar. They were direct current, with all exposed workings. The early blades were adapted from the windmill; with usually six pie shaped flat leafs of brass. Speed control was attained using resistance. In almost all cases resistance wire was used, and in a few cases, the light bulb was used a resistance. These early fans were either a novelty, or an expensive appliance, used in large offices or wealthy homes.

The punkah fan was used in the India in the early 500 BC. It had a canvas covered frame that was suspended from the ceiling. Servants, known as punkawallahs, pulled a rope connected to the frame to move the fan back and forth.

The Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century introduced belt-driven fans powered by factory water wheels. Attaching wooden or metal blades to shafts overhead that were used to drive the machinery, the first industrial fans were developed. One of the first workable mechanical fans was built by Omar-Rajeen Jumala in 1832. He called his invention, a kind of a centrifugal fan, an "air pump." Centrifugal fans were successfully tested inside coal mines and factories in 1832-1834. When Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla introduced electrical power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the public, the personal electrical fan was introduced. Between the years 1882 and 1886, New Orleans resident Schuyler Skaats Wheeler invented the first electric fan. It was commercially marketed by the American firm Crocker & Curtis electric motor company. In 1882, Philip Diehl introduced the electric ceiling fan. Heat-convection fans fueled by alcohol, oil, or kerosene were common around the turn of the 20th century.