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Safety Hoist

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Elisha Otis was born on August 3, 1811 Halifax, Vermont. He died on April 8, 1861, but not without changing the world as we knew it. The Safety Hoist, that is how he changed the world. The elevator had been around for a while, but many people did not like to use it, especially construction crews, as it was unstable and often fell and broke. Otis made the “safety hoist; the first elevator equipped with an automatic safety device to prevent it from falling if the lifting chain or rope broke. (Britannica) “[the safety hoist]..safety device consisted of a used wagon spring that attached to both the top of the hoist platform and the overhead lifting cable...under ordinary circumstances, the spring was kept in place by the pull of the platforms weight …show more content…

When this occurred, both ends of the spring would engage the saw-toothed ratchet-bar beams that Otis had installed on either side of the shaft, thereby bringing the falling hoist platform to a complete stop.” (ASME) Elisha Otis displayed his creation at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York City in 1854. One year prior to the exposition Otis opened his own factory in Yonkers on September 20, 1853. He already had two large orders but once the exposition took place he began to get more and more orders. In 1857 Otis equipped a five story building with the first passenger elevator, it was a completely surrounded chamber with the same mechanics as the freight elevators he developed. Elisha Otis started a business with his two sons called Union Elevator and General Machine Works Company, later renamed Otis Brothers and Company. His safety elevators were used in tall landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, the Chrysler and Empire State Building. Elisha Otis made a few other inventions in his lifetime, the steam plow, the bake/rotary oven, the railway safety brake and the oscillating steam …show more content…

Now almost every two story business and commercial building has an elevator. The Otis Brothers and Company are still around and they installed elevators in the Eiffel Tower and the Washington Monument. In 1913 the The Otis Brothers and Company installed an elevator in a 60 story, Woolworth Building NYC which was the tallest building at the time. Elisha Otis and his inventions greatly impacted our way of life. Now it’s hard to think of a building without an elevator, one that is safe and will not come crashing down. Elevators are everywhere, schools, banks, and some people even have them in their houses. Elevators are a very normal thing to have, no one bats an eye when a school has an elevator or when an apartment building has one, but no one thinks of how the elevator came about and who made it same enough for people to ride

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