|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Drawing
of a hydraulic elevator similar to that installed
in the White House - Smithsonian Institution
On February 12, 1880, a wooden crate arrived at
the White House containing a new contrivance which
would make a more immediate difference than the
telephone: a Fairbanks & Company Improved Number
Two Typewriter. From that time on presidential letters
began to appear in ragged little lines of type,
instead of a clerks' fancy pensmanhip. A year later
an experimental form of air-conditioning with an
electric blower was installed in the sick room of
mortally wounded James A. Garfield shot on July
2, 1881. The device forced air through a box with
screens that were kept wet with cold ice water and
cooled the president. In the month of his inauguration,
Garfield had ordered a hydraulic elevator for the
house, but the project was postponed during his
illness for fear that the noise of the construction
would outweigh the resulting convenience. The elevator
was finally installed in the fall of 1881, after
Chester A. Arthur succeeded Garfield.
Source: William Seale, The President's House, 495, 524, 534.
|
|
|
|
