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Antique and Vintage Fans
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As electricity spread across North America in the 1880s, a time before air conditioning, consumers delighted at the potential to improve air flow as much as the ability to light up the night. Man-made breezes could now be delivered via electric...
As electricity spread across North America in the 1880s, a time before air conditioning, consumers delighted at the potential to improve air flow as much as the ability to light up the night. Man-made breezes could now be delivered via electric motors that spun pie-slice-shaped brass blades, stirring and circulating the air within what had been stagnant rooms.
The first electric fan was designed in 1882 by Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, the American son of Dutch immigrants. Inspired by the experimental work of luminaries like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, Wheeler attached a two-blade propeller to the central shaft of a small electric motor, and the first desktop fan was born. Wheeler partnered with the Curtis & Crocker Electric Motor Company to produce his fans, and in 1889, Wheeler and company co-owner Francis B. Crocker split off to establish the Crocker-Wheeler Electric Motor Company, which manufactured motors for fans as well as other industrial devices like lathes, drills, elevators, and sewing machines.
The antique fans envisioned by Wheeler were hardly what we’d call “child-safe” today: Their blades, which spun at upwards of 1,600 revolutions per minute, were uncaged, while their direct-current, or DC, electrical connections were exposed, producing shocks if touched even when the fans were not running. During the 1890s, cages were gradually added around the blades, ostensibly to protect the fan blades—though most observers knew the metal propellers would win in a battle with curious hands. “This guard is intended mainly to protect the fingers of children or meddlers from the effect of contact with the rapidly revolving fan, we suppose, as we have observed that in cases of such contact the fan, like the equally deceptive buzz-saw, usually protects itself,” an article in an 1890 edition of “Science” magazine explained.
Edison, whose Edison Illuminating Company sent power throughout lower Manhattan, was a self-interested proponent of DC, but many of his earliest electrical fans were battery-powered. His Type S batteries came in a heavy wooden box that was more than two-feet long. Inside were four porcelain jars, each of which held the ingredients for a battery. When the power ran out, which for an average Edison fan was after about 125 hours, the customer would have to replace the zinc and copper plates within the jars, as well as each cell’s supply of potash and water.
Competitors to Crocker and Edison manufactured fans that ran on alternating current, or AC, powered by induction motors engineered by Nikola Tesla. Westinghouse was the first company to put Tesla’s motor’s into its fans, which featured four teardrop-shaped, caged blades. Emerson was another early adopter of AC; its antique blades are distinctive for their irregular kidney shape. And as the motors got smaller, thanks mostly to reductions in the size of the wire used inside them, fans got less bulky, with side-view profiles of the motor’s cast-iron housing resembling a short stack of pancakes, for which these fans are named.
A cousin to the antique electric fan was the kerosene fan, which was popular in rural areas where electricity was uncommon. These floor fans stood on wrought-iron bases and featured kerosene engines, some made by Stirling, whose heat rotated the fan’s blades, which in turn generated a cooling breeze. Jost was one manufacturer of kerosene fans, as was Lake Breeze Motor, which also made alcohol-burning desk fans.
Meanwhile, in the late 1880s, German-American engineer Philip H. Diehl had patented his own electric fan while working for the Singer Manufacturing Company, which specialized in sewing machines. After attaching propeller blades to a sewing-machine motor, Diehl mounted it to the ceiling, eventually adding a central socket for a light bulb to the invention. Ceiling fans were quickly adopted for factories to cool employees, and soon spread to restaurants, hotels, and, finally, private homes. The first oscillating mechanical fans appeared around 1904.
By World War I, other companies such as Colonial, Eck Dynamo & Motor, General Electric (GE), Menominee, Robbins & Myers, Western Electric, and Westinghouse were manufacturing oscillating and stationary electric desk fans. Brass, which was needed for ammunition, was replaced by steel and eventually aluminum, which allowed manufacturers to create much lighter blades. While GE had pioneered the use of overlapping blades to create a quieter fan in the late 1920s, Emerson designer Jane Evans used aluminum for its beauty, creating, in 1932, the Silver Swan, whose rounded, overlapping blades suggested the feathered profiles of a flock of the beautiful birds.
Other manufacturers of vintage fans from the mid-20th century include Gilbert, which had its own version of Emerson’s Silver Swan; Samson, which made an uncaged fan whose four blades were made of rubber; and Fitzgerald, whose streamline moderne motor housings suggested torpedoes or futuristic spaceships.
During the 1950s, improvements in air-conditioning technology or “refrigerated air,” destroyed much of the commercial demand for electric fans. Most collectors prefer vintage fans dating from the 1960s or before, however, companies continued to innovate with fan design throughout the 20th century, as with the bladeless fan patented in 1981 by Tokyo Shibaura Electric (now known as Toshiba) and later made famous by Dyson.
Continue readingAs electricity spread across North America in the 1880s, a time before air conditioning, consumers delighted at the potential to improve air flow as much as the ability to light up the night. Man-made breezes could now be delivered via electric motors that spun pie-slice-shaped brass blades, stirring and circulating the air within what had been stagnant rooms.
The first electric fan was designed in 1882 by Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, the American son of Dutch immigrants. Inspired by the experimental work of luminaries like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, Wheeler attached a two-blade propeller to the central shaft of a small electric motor, and the first desktop fan was born. Wheeler partnered with the Curtis & Crocker Electric Motor Company to produce his fans, and in 1889, Wheeler and company co-owner Francis B. Crocker split off to establish the Crocker-Wheeler Electric Motor Company, which manufactured motors for fans as well as other industrial devices like lathes, drills, elevators, and sewing machines.
The antique fans envisioned by Wheeler were hardly what we’d call “child-safe” today: Their blades, which spun at upwards of 1,600 revolutions per minute, were uncaged, while their direct-current, or DC, electrical connections were exposed, producing shocks if touched even when the fans were not running. During the 1890s, cages were gradually added around the blades, ostensibly to protect the fan blades—though most observers knew the metal propellers would win in a battle with curious hands. “This guard is intended mainly to protect the fingers of children or meddlers from the effect of contact with the rapidly revolving fan, we suppose, as we have observed that in cases of such contact the fan, like the equally deceptive buzz-saw, usually protects itself,” an article in an 1890 edition of “Science” magazine explained.
Edison, whose Edison Illuminating Company sent power throughout lower Manhattan, was a self-interested proponent of DC, but many of his...
As electricity spread across North America in the 1880s, a time before air conditioning, consumers delighted at the potential to improve air flow as much as the ability to light up the night. Man-made breezes could now be delivered via electric motors that spun pie-slice-shaped brass blades, stirring and circulating the air within what had been stagnant rooms.
The first electric fan was designed in 1882 by Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, the American son of Dutch immigrants. Inspired by the experimental work of luminaries like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, Wheeler attached a two-blade propeller to the central shaft of a small electric motor, and the first desktop fan was born. Wheeler partnered with the Curtis & Crocker Electric Motor Company to produce his fans, and in 1889, Wheeler and company co-owner Francis B. Crocker split off to establish the Crocker-Wheeler Electric Motor Company, which manufactured motors for fans as well as other industrial devices like lathes, drills, elevators, and sewing machines.
The antique fans envisioned by Wheeler were hardly what we’d call “child-safe” today: Their blades, which spun at upwards of 1,600 revolutions per minute, were uncaged, while their direct-current, or DC, electrical connections were exposed, producing shocks if touched even when the fans were not running. During the 1890s, cages were gradually added around the blades, ostensibly to protect the fan blades—though most observers knew the metal propellers would win in a battle with curious hands. “This guard is intended mainly to protect the fingers of children or meddlers from the effect of contact with the rapidly revolving fan, we suppose, as we have observed that in cases of such contact the fan, like the equally deceptive buzz-saw, usually protects itself,” an article in an 1890 edition of “Science” magazine explained.
Edison, whose Edison Illuminating Company sent power throughout lower Manhattan, was a self-interested proponent of DC, but many of his earliest electrical fans were battery-powered. His Type S batteries came in a heavy wooden box that was more than two-feet long. Inside were four porcelain jars, each of which held the ingredients for a battery. When the power ran out, which for an average Edison fan was after about 125 hours, the customer would have to replace the zinc and copper plates within the jars, as well as each cell’s supply of potash and water.
Competitors to Crocker and Edison manufactured fans that ran on alternating current, or AC, powered by induction motors engineered by Nikola Tesla. Westinghouse was the first company to put Tesla’s motor’s into its fans, which featured four teardrop-shaped, caged blades. Emerson was another early adopter of AC; its antique blades are distinctive for their irregular kidney shape. And as the motors got smaller, thanks mostly to reductions in the size of the wire used inside them, fans got less bulky, with side-view profiles of the motor’s cast-iron housing resembling a short stack of pancakes, for which these fans are named.
A cousin to the antique electric fan was the kerosene fan, which was popular in rural areas where electricity was uncommon. These floor fans stood on wrought-iron bases and featured kerosene engines, some made by Stirling, whose heat rotated the fan’s blades, which in turn generated a cooling breeze. Jost was one manufacturer of kerosene fans, as was Lake Breeze Motor, which also made alcohol-burning desk fans.
Meanwhile, in the late 1880s, German-American engineer Philip H. Diehl had patented his own electric fan while working for the Singer Manufacturing Company, which specialized in sewing machines. After attaching propeller blades to a sewing-machine motor, Diehl mounted it to the ceiling, eventually adding a central socket for a light bulb to the invention. Ceiling fans were quickly adopted for factories to cool employees, and soon spread to restaurants, hotels, and, finally, private homes. The first oscillating mechanical fans appeared around 1904.
By World War I, other companies such as Colonial, Eck Dynamo & Motor, General Electric (GE), Menominee, Robbins & Myers, Western Electric, and Westinghouse were manufacturing oscillating and stationary electric desk fans. Brass, which was needed for ammunition, was replaced by steel and eventually aluminum, which allowed manufacturers to create much lighter blades. While GE had pioneered the use of overlapping blades to create a quieter fan in the late 1920s, Emerson designer Jane Evans used aluminum for its beauty, creating, in 1932, the Silver Swan, whose rounded, overlapping blades suggested the feathered profiles of a flock of the beautiful birds.
Other manufacturers of vintage fans from the mid-20th century include Gilbert, which had its own version of Emerson’s Silver Swan; Samson, which made an uncaged fan whose four blades were made of rubber; and Fitzgerald, whose streamline moderne motor housings suggested torpedoes or futuristic spaceships.
During the 1950s, improvements in air-conditioning technology or “refrigerated air,” destroyed much of the commercial demand for electric fans. Most collectors prefer vintage fans dating from the 1960s or before, however, companies continued to innovate with fan design throughout the 20th century, as with the bladeless fan patented in 1981 by Tokyo Shibaura Electric (now known as Toshiba) and later made famous by Dyson.
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