Latest / The Hidden History Podcast
History of the Elevator
New York, 1854. A man is hoisted high above a crowd on a single rope — then tells his assistant to cut it. It falls a small amount, but then 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 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…
The skinny
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