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In 1881, a dying President James Garfield got a respite from Washington, D.C.'s oppressive summer swelter thanks to an awkward device involving air blown through cotton sheets doused in ice water. Like Elagabalus before him, Garfield's comfort required enormous energy consumption; his caretakers reportedly went through half a million pounds of ice in two months.
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www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/a
In 1902, a 25-year-old engineer from New York named Willis Carrier invented the first modern air-conditioning system -
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/a_h
The mechanical unit, which sent air through water-cooled coils, was not for human comfort. It was designed to control humidity in the printing plant where he worked. -
http://www.carrier.com/carrier/en/us/about/history/
Carrier achieves the first application of air conditioning in a residence for the Charles Gates mansion in Minneapolis, Minnesota. -
www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox
In 1922, he followed up with the invention of the central chiller, which added a central compressor to reduce the unit's size -
www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox
It was introduced to the public on Memorial Day weekend, 1925, when it debuted at the Rivoli Theater in Times Square. -
www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox
In the 1930s, air conditioning spread to department stores, rail cars, and offices, sending workers' summer productivity soaring -
content.time.com/time/nation/article
So in the 1940s and '50s, the air-conditioning industry gave its product a different spin. Keeping employees cool was simply a matter of productivity, and there were numbers to prove it. tests of federal employees showed that typists increased their output by 24% when transferred from a regular office to a cooled one. -
http://content.time.com/time/nation
By 1957, the air condition early reputation for making workers lazy had been successfully inverted; Cooper writes of another study showing that, by then, almost 90% of companies cited air-conditioning as the most important factor in office efficiency. -
www.carrier.com/carrier
The acquisition of Carrier by United Technologies in 1979 would reshape the global market for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. -
www.prospectmagazine.com
In the 1980s, the first air-conditioned vehicles carried immense social status. In Texas in the 1950s, some people drove around with their windows shut tight in 100-degree heat, just to fool their neighbors. -
www.carrier.com
Carrier’s environmental stewardship has always included a strong education component and a commitment to the use of sound refrigerants well in advance of regulations and competitors. -
celebrate
Carrier celebrates the 110th anniversary of the invention of modern air conditioning
