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Then & Now
Electric Motors
Electric MotorsIn 1772, John Whitehurst of Cheshire in the United Kingdom invented a manually controlled precursor of the hydraulic ram called the pulsation engine. The first one he installed, in 1772 at Oulton, Cheshire, and raised water to a height of 16 ft. He installed another in an Irish property in 1783. He did not patent it, but it is known to have had an air vessel.
The first self-acting ram pump was invented by Frenchman Joseph Michel Montgolfier in 1796, for raising water in his paper mill at Voiron. His friend Matthew Boulton took out a British patent on his behalf in 1797. The sons of Montgolfier obtained an English patent for an improved version in 1816, and this was acquired, together with Whitehurst’s design, in 1820 by Josiah Easton, a Somerset-born engineer who moved to London.
Easton’s firm, inherited by his son James (1796–1871), grew during the nineteenth century to become one of the more important engineering manufacturers in the United Kingdom, with a large works at Kent. They specialised in water supply and sewerage systems world-wide, as well as land drainage projects. The firm was eventually closed in 1909, but the ram business was continued by James R Easton. In 1929, it was acquired by Green & Carter of Winchester, Hampshire, who were engaged in the manufacturing and installation of the well-known Vulcan and Vacher Rams.
The first US patent for hydraulic ram was issued to J Cerneau and S S Hallet in 1809. US interest in hydraulic rams picked up around 1840, as further patents were issued and domestic companies started offering rams for sale. Toward the end of the 19th century, interest waned as electricity and electric pumps became widely available. By the end of the twentieth century, interest in hydraulic rams revived due to the needs of sustainable technology in developing countries, and energy conservation in developed ones.
Ceiling Fans
Ceiling FansSchulyer Wheeler was an American engineer who invented the two bladed electric fan in 1886. It was the principal method of home cooling until Willis Haviland Carrier invented the first air-conditioner system.
Wheeler (1860-1923) figured out how to apply the fledgling science of electricity to make a fan turn. Drawing on the work of Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla, Wheeler invented a desktop fan consisting of two blades unshielded by any sort of protective cage and powered by an electric motor. The fan was marketed by Crocker & Curtis Electric Motor Co.
Further development of the electric fan fell to Philip H Diehl, a German immigrant who had lost everything in the 1871 Chicago fire. Diehl pulled up stakes for the East Coast, where he went to work for the Singer Sewing Machine company. He took a sewing-machine motor, mounted a fan blade and attached the whole thing to the ceiling, thereby inventing the ceiling fan, which he patented in 1887. Later, as head of his own company, Diehl added a light fixture to the ceiling fan. In 1904, Diehl and Co put a split-ball joint on an electric fan, allowing it to be redirected; three years later, this idea developed into the first oscillating fan.
Electric Drill
Electric DrillThe earliest drills were bow drills which date back to the ancient Harappans and Egyptians. The drill press as a machine tool evolved from the bow drill and is many centuries old. It was powered by various power sources over the centuries, such as human effort, water wheels, and windmills, often with the use of belts.
A drill or drill motor is a tool fitted with a cutting tool attachment or driving tool attachment, usually a drill bit or driver bit, used for drilling holes in various materials or fastening various materials together with the use of fasteners. The attachment is gripped by a chuck at one end of the drill and rotated while pressed against the target material. The tip, and sometimes edges, of the cutting tool does the work of cutting into the target material. This may be slicing off thin shavings (twist drills or auger bits), grinding off small particles (oil drilling), crushing and removing pieces of the workpiece (SDS masonry drill), countersinking, counter boring, or other operations.
With the coming of the electric motor in the late 19th century, there was a great rush to power machine tools with such motors, and drills were among them. The invention of the first electric drill is credited to Arthur James Arnot and William Blanch Brain, in 1889, in Melbourne, Australia. Wilhelm Fein invented the portable electric drill in 1895, in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1917, Black & Decker patented a trigger-like switch mounted on a pistol-grip handle.
Drills are commonly used in woodworking, metalworking, construction and do-it-yourself projects. Specially designed drills are also used in medicine, space missions and other applications. Drills are available with a wide variety of performance characteristics, such as power and capacity.
Then & Now
Electric StoveUntil the 20th century, housewives cooked in open fireplaces and on cast iron wood or coal-burning stoves. Gas eventually became the primary cooking fuel, as most homes still weren’t wired to use the electric stoves that originated at the turn of the century.
Electric stoves were introduced in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. But the elements on early electric stoves couldn’t withstand the intense heat, a problem rectified in 1905 when Albert Marsh developed a new nickel-chrome alloy that could. Within a few years, an oven thermostat was added to offer competition to gas stoves that had this feature.
When the 1920s came, 60% of American households had electricity, whose cost was steadily dropping. Electric stoves were streamlined into a more squared shape and coated with porcelain enamel to make cleaning easier.
The self-cleaning oven, which was introduced in 1963, used extremely high temperatures to reduce food residues to ashes that could be swept out. The 1970s witnessed the advent of smooth glass and ceramic cooktops that were heated by electrical coils or infrared halogen lamps located beneath them.
