7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

hoist rope. The next year Otis resigned from his job and

set up a small elevator shop in Yonkers, selling his first

elevator machine on Sept. 20, 1853. It hauled freight.

Orders were few until May 1854, when, at the Crystal

Palace in New York City, he demonstrated his elevator by

riding the platform high in the air and ordering the rope

cut. On March 23, 1857, he installed the first safety elevator

for passenger service in the store of E.V. Haughwout &

Co. in New York City; driven by steam power, it climbed

five stories in less than a minute and was a pronounced

success. On Jan. 15, 1861, Otis patented an independently

controlled steam engine for elevator use (installed in 1862).

This invention laid the foundation for the business that

his two sons, Charles and Norton, carried on after his

death as owners of what eventually became the Otis

Elevator Company.

Otis also devised a number of other mechanical con-

trivances. In 1852 he patented some railroad-car trucks

and brakes. In 1857 he patented a steam plow, and in 1858

he patented a bake oven.

Sir Henry Bessemer

(b. Jan. 19, 1813, Charlton, Hertfordshire, Eng.—d. March 15,

1898, London)

S

ir Henry Bessemer was an English inventor and engi-

neer who developed the first process for manufacturing

steel inexpensively (1856), leading to the development of

the Bessemer converter. He was knighted in 1879.

Bessemer was the son of an engineer and typefounder.

He early showed considerable mechanical skill and inventive

powers. After the invention of movable stamps for dating

deeds and other government documents and the improve-

ment of a typesetting machine, he went to the manufacture

of “gold” powder from brass for use in paints. The florid