Urban people need elevators, as Kafka said, “I am a cage, in search of a bird.” In 1852, Elisha Otis invented a safety device that prevented elevators from falling if the hoisting cable broke, and the modern elevator appeared in an embryonic form. As a device begun to be gradually used in large structures in mid nineteenth Century, elevators made skyscrapers possible, changed the urban skylines, and shaped the social psychology of modern urbanites to a large extent.

In the WEM’s Permanent Exhibition Hall 2 titled “Moving with Progress”, a hydraulic elevator is exhibited in form of a 3D printing model.

  the 3D printing model of the hydraulic elevator

In Expo 1867 Paris, American Charles and Otis exhibited the hydraulic lifting system with safety brakes, which increased the public’s confidence in such devices and promoted the construction of high-rise residential buildings in major cities in America and Europe. In addition, there is a legend about “safe elevator”, and almost everyone in the world is familiar with it. How about you?

Safety Elevator

1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York

1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York staged a breathtaking scene: American mechanic Ilesha Otis stood in an elevator platform carrying wooden boxes, barrels and other goods. When the platform was lifted to the air, he cut off the cable of the “elevator”, and the audience held their breath with a big shock. However, the platform that he was standing on did not “fall freely” but suddenly stopped almost at the same moment. A warm applause broke out in the crowd. Otis bowed to the audience and said, “everything is safe, gentlemen, everything is safe.”

Ilesha Otis

Safety braking apparatus

It turned out to be that the “elevator” had a safety braking apparatus: when the cable lost its tension, the spring automatically released plugs and held the gears on both sides of the rail. This Expo made Otis famous overnight and he gained fame and fortune promptly.

The schematic diagram of the elevator invented by Otis

As early as 4,500 years ago, the most primitive and unchanging lifting system has been used in building Pyramids by Egyptians: when a balancing object is falling down, the loading platform is rising up.During Nero’s reign in ancient Rome, 16 slaves were needed to pull the rope when a manpower lift lifted gladiators and beasts from underground onto the arena. In 1203, a crane powered by a donkey was installed in a monastery on the coast of France, which ended the history of transporting heavy objects with manpower. After the invention of the steam engine by Watt, a British scientist, the crane began to use steam as its power. Innovative engineers of generations have been improving elevator technology continuously.

1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York

However, the less well known is that British engineer Forde Raynier invented the mine pit safety lift as early as 1851 at the Great Exhibition. Because of the high rate of mine accidents at that time, the “cage” taken by coal mining workers often crashed down.

Forde Raynier

  “Mine Pit Safety Lift”

British engineer Forde Raynier successfully solved the problem of automatic hovering of cabin of the lift when the cable broke. Its working principle was totally same with that of Otis showed at the Expo two years later, and the only difference was that “one is under the horizon, and one on the horizon”.

Otis has become a famous brand

Tallis's History and Description of the Crystal Palacehas such sentences, “millions of visitors turned a blind eye to the safety lift… in fact, it can be named as the Salvation of the World”. Forde Raynier took the lead but became unknown. Otis came late but successfully promoted himself and became well known all round the world. While, the more importance may lie in that Otis was aimed to “go up to the sky” but Forde Raynier was aimed to “get down under the ground”. The tide of social demands gave them different fortunes.

Otis has become a famous brand

After its first appearance in the Expo, Otis quickly set up a world's largest elevator company in the United States, and its annual sales of elevators equaled to the sum of the second and third largest companies. In December 1889, Otis made an elevator that was worthy of its reputation. It was powered by a DC motor, and hung and lifted the cabin through a rope twisted on a drum by a worm gear reducer.

The buildings of human being suddenly grew taller by virtue of elevators. There would be no skyscraper without a speedy “vertical traffic”. The wide use of elevators has changed cityscape. It takes only a few minutes from bottom to top in a tall building like the Empire State Building with 102 floors.