Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Hardcover Author: Andreas Bernard | Language: English | ISBN:
0814787169 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Review
“Bernard’s passion for research is as impressive as the ease with which he—elevator-like—moves between the disciplines of literature, art history, sociology, and psychology.”-
Der Spiegel,
“The elevator, which today seems so boring, was once a vehicle of change of compelling power. Whoever reads this book will view the world’s elevators with different eyes.”-
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
"Andreas Bernard, a German newspaper editor, has written a history of the now-ubiquitous lift. Elevators made tall buildings, and thus modern urban life, possible...the anecdotes and insights are captivating."-,
The Economist"The elevator did more than make New York the city of skyscrapers, it changed the way we live, as German newspaper editor Andreas Bernard explains in Lifted."-Stephen Lynch,
New York Post"In a new book, 'Lifted,' German journalist and cultural studies professor Andreas Bernard zeroes in on this experience, tracing mankind’s relationship to the elevator back to its origins and finding that it has never been a totally comfortable one. 'After 150 years, we are still not used to it,' Bernard said. 'We still have not exactly learned to cope with this...mixture of intimacy and anonymity.' That mixture, according to Bernard, sets the elevator ride apart from just about every other situation we find ourselves in as we go about our lives."-Leon Neyfakh,
The Boston GlobeAbout the Author
Andreas Bernard is editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest daily newspaper. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Sciences from the Bauhaus University Weimar, and teaches cultural studies in Berlin and Lucerne, Switzerland.
Books with free ebook downloads available Download Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator Hardcover
- Hardcover: 309 pages
- Publisher: NYU Press (February 14, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0814787169
- ISBN-13: 978-0814787168
- Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.3 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The United States was the first country to make domestic use of the elevator. Its immense tenement apartments could only be so tall if people were going to take the stairs. Initially, elevators were used mostly to haul heavy freight up and down.
Mr. Otis changed all that. The real inventor was Otis Tufts, but history is generally written by the victors, and so the EG Otis Elevator Company gets credit for the passenger elevator with the safety mechanism that was demonstrated at the Crystal Palace in New York City in 1854. As the crowd that had been beckoned watched breathlessly, the elevator, centrally located and visible on all sides, had its cable cut. Everyone gasped, of course, and anticipated its immediate crash. However, the safety mechanism engaged and so instead of a deadly rushing descent, the elevator simply halted.
What was everyone so afraid of to begin with? Well, to this reviewer, it seems natural that until the elevator had become a normal part of city living, people would be afraid of it. I don’t care for heights much, myself; my mother, who didn’t fear heights, was claustrophobic, and always let out a small gasp of relief when we exited a crowded elevator together.
There’s more to it, though. Elevators, Bernard says, had become related in the public eye to mines. A lot of people work in mines, but a lot of people get dead there, too. I am not sure whether the public’s fear of elevator shafts that descended to mines was a reflection on elevators so much as on the mining companies, but that’s another story, another book. In any case, people were afraid of passenger elevators until the widely publicized safety mechanism had been demonstrated.
Elevator history: go figure. Why was I so determined to read this particular nugget?
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