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CARRIER CORPORATION |
He's one of America’s greatest inventors. But unlike
Edison, Ford, Bell or the Wright Brothers, his remarkable accomplishment
has never been fully recognized. He made indoor sports and summer
blockbuster movies possible. His invention facilitated the growth of the
microchip and pharmaceutical industries. Some even credit him for the
rise of the New South and the Sun Belt. He's Dr. Willis H. Carrier, and
100 years ago (1902), he invented modern air conditioning, making the
world a much cooler place in which to live.
We may have grown accustomed to cool, comfortable air in our homes,
cars, offices, shopping malls, public transportation and movie theaters,
but the air conditioning industry continues to solve perplexing problems
with comfort in much the same way Willis H. Carrier did when he
introduced the first scientific air conditioning system in 1902.
There are few areas in life that have not felt the impact of air
conditioning since Willis H. Carrier, a 25-year-old mechanical engineer
employed by the Buffalo Forge Co., solved a quality problem for
Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing Co., a Brooklyn, N.Y. printer on July 17,
1902.
Celebrating 100 years of innovation, Carrier Corporation, a subsidiary
of United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX), is the world’s largest
manufacturer of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment
for commercial, residential and transportation applications.
Headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut USA, with over 45,000 employees
in over 171 countries, Carrier combines its global HVAC and
refrigeration expertise with the responsiveness of its local operations
to lead nearly every geographic market.
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LEARN MORE
RELATED INFORMATION:
Willis Haviland Carrier,
Biography
from The Great Idea Finder
ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Willis Haviland Carrier Father of Air Conditioning
by Margaret Ingels / Hardcover: 170 pages / Ayer Co Pub; Reprint edition
(December 1, 1972)
ON THE WEB:
Carrier Corporation
Carrier's early work in developing centrifugal refrigeration machines led to new safe
refrigerants for which he also received several patents. By controlling humidity as well
as temperature, he invented air conditioning as we know it today. Carrier
and several other engineers formed the Carrier Engineering Corporation in
1915 with capital of $35,000.
(URL: www.carrier.com)
Carrier History
The history of air conditioning is a history of Carrier, and there's more
behind the comfort we take for granted on a sweltering summer day than you
might think.
(URL: www.global.carrier.com/details/0,,CLI1_DIV28_ETI23,00.html)
History of Buffalo
As a young boy, Willis was recognized as inventive and studious. After
chores on the farm, he often burned the midnight oil on self-invented
problems. One friend remembers Willis working on geometry problems outside,
during a snowstorm, unmindful of the weather around him.
(URL: ah.bfn.org/h/carr/)
DID YOU KNOW:
- Some of his installations include the
Madison Square Garden, the U.S. House and Senate Chambers and the White
House.
- He would install the world's first
residential air conditioning system in a home in Minneapolis, Minn. (I do
not know why.)
LESSONS TO LEARN:
Willis Carrier had a humble
upbringing and possessed high hopes from the start. Interested in
mechanics from the time he was a child, he once planned to create an
entire estate of mechanical animals. At the age of nine, like most
children that age, Carrier had trouble understanding fractions. In an
effort to help him better understand, his mother sat him down in the
kitchen and cut an apple into halves, quarters, and eighths. As a result
of this exercise, Carrier would solve every complex problem he
encountered by reducing it to its simplest form and solving its
component problems one by one. His high school graduation essay stated
that, "a man with the power of will could make himself anything he
wished no matter what the circumstances." On July 17, 1902, Carrier
proved this statement true when he completed drawings for what came to
be recognized as the world's first scientific air conditioning system.
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This
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