Willis Carrier: The Father of Air Conditioning

Willis Carrier: The Father of Air Conditioning

It is a hot, humid evening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and you find yourself dripping with sweat. The air is still, and you stick to your sheets as you toss and turn and try to sleep in your house that has retained all of the heat from the summer sun’s rays. Uncomfortable and miserable, you think to yourself, “How did people ever live without air conditioning?” yours has been on the fritz, and you cannot imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t have the luxury of an air conditioning unit in your home. If it weren’t for Willis Carrier, and his ground-breaking invention of a mechanical air conditioning unit in 1902, our lives would be drastically different.

Willis Haviland Carrier was a mechanical engineer who was born in Angola, New York on November 26, 1876. Carrier was born into an interesting lifeline as a descendant of a family whom had been plagued by the infamous Salem Witch trials of the late 1600’s. However, unlike many remarkable individuals throughout history, Carrier was not a prodigy. Although, it was apparent that Carrier had always enjoyed “tinkering” with contraptions from an early age, Carrier was not always the brightest of his peers. As a matter of fact, it has been said that Carrier accredits much of his success to his inability to comprehend fractions at an early age. In order for his mother to drill the concept into his head, she sliced an apple into many different “fractional sections” to allow him to visualize how the components made up a whole. As per his company’s website, “this lesson was the most important one that he ever learned because it taught him the value of intelligent problem-solving.” It has been said that he was not “particularly m...

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...it was also a much cheaper alternative. The transition to residential air conditioning began by moving to department stores, then apartment buildings, and even the ice rink in Madison Square Garden! The evolution was slowed by the Great Depression, but it eventually took off, and led to the commonality of air conditioning units in every home as it is today.

Needless to say, if it were not for Carrier and his mind, we would lead a different lifestyle today. Whether it be the way that products are manufactured, foods are chilled, homes are cooled, or our medications are kept at a safe temperature, Carrier’s invention plays a gigantic role on our everyday lives’. I think that he would be quite satisfied with how far his technology has come today, and continues to grow, as it is so common that we may just take it for granted on a hot, humid Pittsburgh night.