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This Day in History Class as a production of I Heart

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Radio. Hello

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and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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a show that takes you on a ride through

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the ups and downs of everyday

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history. I'm Gay Bluesier,

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and in this episode, we're talking about

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the early days of escalators, an

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invention that delivered all the fun

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and convenience of stationary stairs,

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but without all that pesky exercise.

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The day was March eighteen

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ninety two, Jesse Wilford

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Reno received a patent for

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what would later become the world's first

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working escalator. The

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inventor was born on August four, eighteen

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sixty one, in Fort Leavenworth,

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Kansas. He moved east

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as an adult and began studying

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engineering at Lehigh University

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in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Reno's

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idea for the escalator was reportedly

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inspired by the steep geography

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of the campus. The school

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is built on the side of South Mountain,

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and as a result, the students had to climb

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a lot of stairs to get around. It's

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easy to imagine how this would inspire

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a student with a mind for mechanics

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to dream up a way for a machine to

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do all the heavy lifting. But

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Reno actually wasn't the first

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person to design an escalator

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like device. In eighteen

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fifty nine, a lawyer turned

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inventor named Nathan Ames

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patented his design for a machine

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that allowed people to quote, ascend,

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and descend from one story of a

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building to another without exerting

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any muscular strength. Unfortunately,

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Ames wasn't an engineer, so

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his design never made it off the drawing

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board. A similar thing

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happened thirty years later in eighteen

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eighty nine. That's when an amateur

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inventor named Lehman Souder

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was granted a patent for the Stairway,

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a moving staircase linked by a chain

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and propelled by hydraulics. Once

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again, though Souder didn't have

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the engineering know how to actually

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build the machine, but James

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Reno did. After

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graduating with degrees in mining

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and mechanical engineering, he took

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a job at the Edison Company, where

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he worked on the electrical systems for railway

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projects. In eighteen

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ninety one, at the age of thirty, Reno

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began drawing up plans for what he would

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later refer to as the inclined

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elevator, the endless conveyor,

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and the moving Stairs.

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Originally the design was part

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of his proposal for an underground

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subway system in New York City.

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Passengers would be transported from

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city streets down to the subway tunnels

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on one escalator, and then carried

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back up by another. Reno's

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proposal was rejected by the city,

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but he didn't give up on the idea of

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a moving staircase. On

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March fift Reno

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secured a patent for his design. Unlike

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the escalators were used to today,

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Reno's version featured a single

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vertical platform rather than a

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series of steps, so think

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of it more like an inclined treadmill.

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The platform traveled upwards along

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a conveyor belt set at an incline

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of twenty five degrees. It

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could be powered either by a generator

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or by a directly connected electric

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motor. Safety features

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included a set of rubber coated handrails

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that moved along with the conveyor belt, as

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well as a pair of shallow landings

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and comb like teeth at either

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end of the belt so that clothes and

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feet couldn't get caught in the mechanism.

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Unlike his predecessors, Reno

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was able to take the next step and actually

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really build a prototype of his invention

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the world's first functioning escalator

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four years later. In the

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machine was ready for his big debut,

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but it wasn't installed in a subway,

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or a department store, or any

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of the places you'd expect to find an

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escalator today. Instead,

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Reno set up his inclined elevator

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as an exhibition at the Coney

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Island Amusement Park in New York

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City. For the next two weeks,

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visitors got the thrill of a lifetime

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as they rose seven feet in

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the air at the relaxed pace of

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ninety ft per minute, about

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a third of the average human walking speed.

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It may seem somewhat tame

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today, but the quote unquote

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ride drew quite a crowd. At Coney

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Island's Iron Pier. The

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machine could transport about three

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thousand people per hour, and

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over the course of its two week engagement,

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roughly seventy five thousand

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people took that trip. A

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report in The Street

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Railway review saying the praises

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of Reno's escalator, calling

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it quote manifestly superior

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to vertical elevators because

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people are handled by it continuously

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and without delay, and no attendant

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is required. Several

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months later, the same prototype

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was moved to the Manhattan side entrance

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of the Brooklyn Bridge. It opened

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to the public on December twenty nine as

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part of a one month trial meant

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to demonstrate the inventions practical

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use. A magazine called

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The Electrical Age took notice of

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the display, noting that the invention

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quote may prove, in the course of

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time to be one of the most popular devices

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used in office buildings or apartment

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houses. A more immediate

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application was found in New York's

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multi story retail stores.

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Reno's escalators had been installed

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in the Bloomingdale Brothers department store

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at Third Avenue and fifty ninth Street.

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Following this success, Reno moved

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to London and founded the Reno Electric

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Stairways and Conveyors Company

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in the early nineteen hundreds. Around

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the same time, improvements

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on Reno's design began to pop up

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in patents around the world. The

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most notable was designed by an explorer

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named George Wheeler. His patent

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featured actual steps and was

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more in line with modern escalators.

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Wheeler never built his machine, but

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he eventually sold the patent to an

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entrepreneur named Charles sie Burger

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in nineteen hundred. Sie Burger

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partnered with the Otis Elevator Company,

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and together they built a working model

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for the Paris Exposition. Along

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with its more efficient design, the

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Otis version of the machine also

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had a much catchier name, the

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escalator, a combination of

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elevator and scala, the

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Latin word for steps. Over

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the next decade, Reno built

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and installed more than twenty escalators

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in mass transit systems in both England

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and the US. However, the

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company wasn't growing as fast as

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Reno had hoped, and he was having a hard

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time turning a profit. By

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nineteen eleven, his commercial prospects

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were so bleak that he sold the whole

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operation, along with his patent,

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to the Otis Elevator Company.

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Within a decade, Otis had installed

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more than three hundred and fifty escalators

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worldwide, primarily in department

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stores and subways. The company

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remained the undisputed leader in both

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elevators and escalators for

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decades to come. In fact,

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up until the mid twentieth century,

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Otis owned the trademark for the term

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escalator, meaning that other manufacturers

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were forced to come up with some clunky

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alternatives, like the electric

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stairway and the motor

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stare that finally

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changed in nineteen fifty when the U.

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S. Patent Office ruled that the term

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escalator had become a catch all

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word for any kind of moving staircase

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and was therefore no longer able to be trademarked.

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Jesse Reno didn't come up with the

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coolest name for his invention, and

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he was far from the first person to dream

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of not having to walk upstairs, but

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he was the first to make that dream

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a reality and to prove to the

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world that such a machine could serve a

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safe, practical purpose in daily

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life. So on, behalf of

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lazy people around the world. Jesse

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Reno, We salute you. I'm

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Gay Bluesier, and hopefully you

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now know a little more about history today

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than you did yesterday. If

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you enjoyed today's show, consider following

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at t d i HC Show.

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You can also rates or review the show

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on Apple Podcasts, and you can write

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to me directly at this day at

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I heart media dot com.

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Thanks as always the Chandler Maze for producing

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the show, and thank you for listening.

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I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

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another day in History Class.