What does the Expression “Showing the White Feather” Come From?
We say people “show the white feather” when they display cowardice, because a white feather in a bird marks a cross breed, and it is not found on a fighting game-cock.
The Story in Elevators and Escalators[15]
Going up and down stairs is a duty every man, woman and child finds it necessary to perform daily and in many cases hourly, and some means for doing this is necessary in every modern household. Even in the old-time one-story house, steps from the outside to the inside were usually necessary, and when the two or more storied houses came into use the stairway became an indispensable feature. In modern times the art of building has had such an upward trend that edifices looming far into the air, hotels, stores, apartment houses, office buildings, etc., have come into use, one notable specimen, the Woolworth building in New York, towering upwards to fifty-four stories in height. This upward tendency has rendered the elevator, or lifting apparatus, an indispensable necessity, alike for passengers and freight, and it has been installed abundantly in all our large cities.
| In Order to Ascend More Easily, Man Devised the Stairway, from which, in Turn, was Developed the Escalator, in Order to Further Eliminate Physical Effort | Primitive Man Pulled Himself up a Ladder when He Wanted to Go from One Level to Another |
The elevator is not exactly a new idea. Its pioneer form may be traced back to the Middle Ages, when heavy weights were lifted by aid of an apparatus worked by hand power. But it was not until well on into the nineteenth century that the steam-power elevator came into service. The first example is said to have been produced by Elisha Graves Otis, who applied steam power to an elevating machine in a little shop at Yonkers, on the banks of the Hudson, New York. A few years later, at the International Exhibition of 1853 in New York, he displayed the first elevator with a safety device to prevent the car from falling in case of a broken cable.
An Elevator of the Middle Ages
History tells us this form of elevator was used in monasteries for hoisting passengers and supplies.
The elevator was then a novelty. It has long since grown into a necessity. It is to be seen in all hotels and high buildings, and the art of getting up stairs has in very many cases changed into that of being lifted up by a moving car in an enclosed shaft or cage. The steam elevator, at first used, has now in great measure been replaced by the electric elevator, the first moved by an electric motor being the Otis elevator installed in the Demarest Building, New York, in 1889. This is still in active use.
The first electric elevators were confined to the drum type of machine, these having a grooved drum around which the hoisting cables were wound, the drum being revolved through worm gearing by an electric motor. But the erection of buildings, ranging from 200 to 700 feet in height has put this type of traction out of business on account of the great size of drums required and the necessary slowness of motion. It has been replaced by the electric traction elevator. In this the hoisting cables from which the car is suspended have at the other end a counterweight and pass around driving sheaves in place of a drum. This, in its latest form known as the gearless traction elevator, does away with all intricate machinery, and yields a machine moving with equal speed whatever the height.
Elevator Installation in the Woolworth Building, New York
To obviate danger from accidents, safety devices are installed for gripping the rails in case of the car attaining excessive speed. Another feature of security is the oil cushion buffer. One of these is placed in the hoistway under the car and one under the counterweight, they being capable of bringing a car to rest from full speed without discomfort to those in the car. The oil in the buffer is driven by the impact of the car from one chamber of the buffer to another, but this is made to take place at a fixed rate of retardation, the oil acting as a liquid cushion which stops the car gradually and without shock.
A Steam-Driven Elevator of Early Date
To do business in the modern lofty building without the aid of elevators (or lifts, as they are called in England) is today out of the question, while the great grain-transporting edifices in cities in which our annual crops are lifted and lowered, are known by the specific name of elevators. There is, however, another means of getting up and down stairs which is coming somewhat rapidly into use and in which the old stairway is restored. It is one in which the stair itself does the moving instead of the passengers upon it. This new and interesting device is known as an escalator.