The discovery of refrigeration changed the way the industrial and residential worlds appeared in so many different ways. Industrially, so many plants adopted the methods to keep either their products or working environment cool. For the invention of air conditioning, one only has to look back to Willis H. Carrier (1876-1950) and his invention of the Carlyle compressor.
Willis Haviland Carrier: The Father of the Air Conditioner
Willis H. Carrier, a highly skilled engineer, is considered the founder of air conditioning. In 1902, he was working on a solution to a problem at a printing plant in Brooklyn, NY. When he teamed up with J. Irvine Lyle (1874-1942), they invented the first air conditioning system in 1908, while working for the Carrier Air Conditioning Company, a subsidiary of Buffalo Forge. In 1915, Lyle and Carrier together with several others formed the Carrier Engineering Corporation. This marked the beginning of a long partnership in which Lyle fulfilled the business role.
In this role, while Carrier continued to invent variations on the air conditioning system, Lyle worked hard to sell the idea as well as the actual product to the American public. During the early years, they appeared in textile mills and tobacco processing plants. Later installations became commonplace in other facilities and institutions including:
* The mansion of Charles Gates in Minneapolis in 1914
* Central Park Theater in Chicago 1917
* New Empire Theatre in Montgomery, Alabama in 1917
* Astor Hotel, Madison Square Garden
* Rivioli Theater, New York City in 1925. This was the debut of a centrifugal chiller, an early version of today’s Carlyle compressor
* Paramount Theater, New York City
* Roxy Theater, New York City
* J. L Hudson Company, Detroit, bargain basement
By the 1930s, every department store, theater and office wanted air conditioning. In the Great Depression, for those retail outlets who had it, air conditioning was means to lure customers into the building. Although not all were Carlyle or Carrier systems, many were and in 1933, Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America upped the ante for new companies by developing a new type of air conditioner. It was to become the model companies adopted to feed the desire for air-cooling systems in America.
The Carlyle Compressor and Air Conditioners Today
Although H.H. Schultz and J.Q. Sherman invented an air conditioning unit for window ledges in 1931, it was truly Carrier and Lyle who established the basis for the entire American industry. Today, Carlyle produces more than 5 million compressors. They have introduced SMART Unloading compressors and the 06M Reciprocating compressor with R-410A. These models, while operating on the same basic scientific principles of the first compressor, are several light years beyond the original. A Carlyle compressor today is more compact and features technology that makes it run quietly and with greater energy efficiency.
