This 1850s Invention Still Makes $14 BILLION per year

Name: This 1850s Invention Still Makes $14 BILLION per year
Uploaded: 2024-12-18T18:00:40+00:00
Duration: 59 s
Channel: Sam Parr
Description: The video recounts the early public fear of elevators, which limited building heights in cities like New York to just a few stories. Inventor Elisha Otis…

18 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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The video recounts the early public fear of elevators, which limited building heights in cities like New York to just a few stories. Inventor Elisha Otis created an elevator with an automatic safety brake, but initially struggled to convince buyers. At a World Fair, Otis staged a dramatic demonstration: he stood in a suspended elevator, had a rope cut with an axe, and the elevator’s safety brake halted its fall after a short drop, proving its reliability. The crowd’s reaction turned skeptical onlookers into believers, leading to a surge in elevator sales. This breakthrough enabled the construction of taller buildings, fundamentally reshaping urban skylines and modern city development.

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Elevator gets invented, but people didn't want to use them. They're scared because there were situations where elevators would just plummet. So it's like, okay, no thanks. The consequence of that is you don't have elevators, you don't have tall buildings. New York was like 4 stories high. This guy Otis ends up creating an elevator with automatic brakes. He's like, this is it, this is going to be amazing, everybody's gonna buy my elevators. But it didn't happen right away. Nobody believed it. The World Fair was going on, and Otis decides to go all in. So he creates this exhibit where he's got an elevator suspended in the air, hanging by ropes. He stands in the elevator, and he says, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have created the world's first safe elevator with automatic brakes." And he gets the guy at the top to swing an axe, and he cuts one rope, and the elevator starts swaying and swinging, and everyone's gasping in the crowd. And he's like, "Cut the rope!" Elevator starts to go down 2 feet, and then it automatic brakes and it stops. And he says, "All safe, gentlemen. When you're in an Otis elevator, all's well. You will be safe." And elevator sales take off from there. It literally reshaped the way that cities work.