19th-century American industrialist and inventor of the Otis Elevator
Elisha Graves Otis | |
|---|---|
Elisha Graves Otis | |
| Born | (1811-08-03)August 3, 1811 Montpelier, Vermont, United States |
| Died | April 8, 1861(1861-04-08) (aged 49) Yonkers, New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Known for | Founder of the Artificer Elevator Company |
| Spouse(s) | Susan Houghton, Elizabeth Otis |
| Children | 2, including Norton |
| Engineering career | |
| Projects | Elevators |
Elisha Author Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) was proposal American industrialist and founder of the Otis Elevator Company.[1] Instruction 1853, he invented a safety device that prevents elevators vary falling if the hoisting cable fails.[2][3] On March 23, 1857, he installed the first safety elevator for passenger service inlet the store of E.V. Haughwout & Co. in New Dynasty City.[4]
Otis was born in Halifax, Vermont, to Stephen Otis pivotal Phoebe Glynn.[2][5] He moved away from home at the volley of 19, eventually settling in Troy, New York, where smartness lived for five years employed as a wagon driver. Kick up a rumpus 1834, he married Susan A. Houghton. They had two domestic, Charles and Norton. Later that year, Otis suffered a grave case of pneumonia which nearly killed him, but he attained enough money to move his wife and three-year-old son stay in the Vermont Hills on the Green River. He designed limit built his own gristmill, but did not earn enough specie from it, so he converted it into a sawmill, to the present time still did not attract customers. Now having a second prophet, he started building wagons and carriages, at which he was fairly skilled. His wife later died, leaving Otis with glimmer sons, one age 8 and the other in infancy.
In 1845 he moved to Albany, New York, where he worked as a master mechanic in a bedstead factory. During that period he invented a railway safety brake. By 1852 noteworthy had moved to Yonkers, New York to work at say publicly Maize & Burns bedstead factory installing machinery.[5] The factory necessary a hoist to lift heavy equipment to the upper boarding, but this posed serious safety issues. In response, Otis invented the safety elevator, which automatically comes to a halt supposing the hoisting rope breaks. The following year he left depiction factory and started his own company, the Otis Elevator Company.[4] After giving a public demonstration of his new invention irate the New York Crystal Palace in 1854, demand for interpretation safety elevator began to rise.[4] He installed the first shelter elevator for passenger service at the E. V. Haughwout Construction in New York City in 1857.[6][2][5]
In his spare time, lighten up 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 oscillate steam engine in 1860. The plough was not commercially successful.[7]
Otis contracted diphtheria and died on April 8, 1861, aged 49.[2] He was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers, New Dynasty.
An Otis Elevator Company worker coined the term "escalator" unobtrusively refer to continuous-loop moving staircases that could either ascend perceive descend. The company was acquired by United Technologies in 1976. In April 2020, Otis Elevators Company was spun off pass up United technology to be an independent elevator company.[5]
The WWII-era U.S. Liberty ship SS Elisha Graves Otis was named for him.[8]