Willis H. Carrier (1876–1950) engineer and inventor

Born in Angola, New York, Carrier was from an old New England family; one of his ancestors was burned at the Salem witch trials. After finishing high school and teaching for several years he entered Cornell and graduated with a master’s degree in 1901. In the same year, he went to work for the Buffalo Forge Co. as an experimental engineer. While working at the company, he met Irving Lyle, who would later be his business partner. A year later, he made his first air-conditioning installation in a Brooklyn, N.Y., printing plant. For the first few years, air conditioners were used to cool machines, not buildings as is common today.

Carrier was involved with air-conditioning throughout his life. He received his first patent for an “apparatus for conditioning air” in 1906. He presented his “Rational Psychrometric Formulae,” the basis for calculations in air conditioning, to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1911. Using their pooled savings of $35,000, Carrier and a group of like-minded engineers founded the Carrier Engineering Corp. in 1915.

From the beginning of his career, Carrier was concerned not only with lowering temperature but controlling humidity as well. The first commercial enterprises to install his devices were movie theaters in Texas, using the machines to cool the environment rather than industrial machines. The era of modern air-conditioning engineering began in 1922, when he developed the first safe, low centrifugal, refrigeration air conditioner using a nontoxic refrigerant. In another coup for his invention, Congress installed air conditioners in 1928. By 1930, Carrier had installed more than 300 air-conditioning units in movie theaters around the country.

Carrier’s operations were moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Syracuse, New York, which lured him with local tax incentives and other inducements. In 1939, he developed a system capable of cooling SKYSCRAPERS. He held more than 80 patents during his career, including those for refrigerants as well as for mechanical innovations.

Carrier’s inventions are credited with helping the United States develop its infrastructure and businesses uniformly throughout the country, regardless of climate. As air conditioners improved and became more affordable, they ceased to be a luxury item and became standard for new buildings as well as existing structures. New areas of the country were opened for development, especially in the South and Southwest, and a new phase of post–World War II migration began. Known as “The Chief,” he died in New York City at age 73. His company was bought by United Technologies Corporation and remains a UTC subsidiary. His invention is one of the most significant, but overlooked, American developments of the 20th century.

Further reading

• Cooper, Gail. Air-conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Enviroment, 1900–1960. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. 
• Ingels, Margaret. Willis Haviland Carrier: Father of Air Conditioning. New York: Country Life Press, 1952.