AUGUST 3

Elisha Graves Otis was born on the 3rd in 1811. His name lives on to this day and is so generally associated with elevators that many believe that he invented the damn things. He did not. What he did invent was the safety device[i] that kept the elevators from falling and sending its passengers to an agonizing and painful death, something that I believe most people probably want to avoid. To plug his work, in 1853, at the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City[ii], he set up an elevator, got in it, raised it up and then had an assistant cut the only cable holding the cage of the elevator. The crowd was impressed that the thing didn’t simply fall and squish Otis like a bug on a windshield and Otis probably managed to get a bunch of customers for his little invention.
[i] He was given patent number 31,128
[ii] Elisha did eventually build elevators and his first one was installed in 488 Broadway, New York, New York in 1857.