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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that takes you for a spin through history, one

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Speaker 1: day at a time. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're

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Speaker 1: singing the praises of the revolving door, an invention that's

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Speaker 1: improved the efficiency and esthetics of modern architecture and kept

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Speaker 1: crowds moving for more than a century and county. The

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Speaker 1: day was August seventh, eighteen eighty eight. American inventor Theophilis

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Speaker 1: van Cannell was granted a patent for the revolving door.

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Speaker 1: His design, described in the patent as a storm door structure,

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Speaker 1: consisted of three individual panels or doors, attached to a

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Speaker 1: central shaft that rotated within a glass enclosed cylinder. The

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Speaker 1: system was meant to be installed in large buildings as

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Speaker 1: a way to keep cold air and street noise from

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Speaker 1: following people inside. Whenever one door was pushed open, the

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Speaker 1: other two would immediately fill the gaps at the entrance

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Speaker 1: and exit, keeping the intrusion of the outside world to

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Speaker 1: a minimum. A similar invention, called the draftless door, had

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Speaker 1: been patented in Germany seven years earlier by H. Bachacker

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Speaker 1: of Berlin, but his version never caught on, and there's

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Speaker 1: no evidence that Van Kennell had any knowledge of it.

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Speaker 1: The Philadelphia inventor came up with the idea on his

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Speaker 1: own while working the front desk in a Philadelphia lobby

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Speaker 1: one cold winter morning in the eighteen eighties. He got

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Speaker 1: fed up with constantly being blasted by cold air and

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Speaker 1: noise every time someone came in or left the building.

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Speaker 1: Every person passing through, he later said, first brings a

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Speaker 1: chilling gust of wind with its snow, rain or dust,

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Speaker 1: including the noise of the street. Then comes the unwelcome

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Speaker 1: bang as the door slam shut behind them. Van Cannell

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Speaker 1: decided to confront the problem head on by designing a

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Speaker 1: new kind of door, one that could maintain the seal

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Speaker 1: of the building and that couldn't be blown shut by

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Speaker 1: the wind. He finalized his design in eighteen eighty eight

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Speaker 1: and received the patent for it on August seventh of

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Speaker 1: that year. Not long after, the desk clerk turned inventor

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Speaker 1: founded his own business, the Stormproof Door Company of Philadelphia.

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Speaker 1: You might imagine that Van Cannell's first clients would be

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Speaker 1: from his own city, but according to most sources. The

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Speaker 1: first revolving door was actually installed at Rector's Lobster Palace

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Speaker 1: in New York City's Times Square. Of course, even if

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Speaker 1: New York was the earliest adopter, the invention certainly caught

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Speaker 1: on in Van Cannell's hometown as well. Within a few years,

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Speaker 1: revolving doors were ferrying customers in and out of stores, restaurants, hotels,

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Speaker 1: and all office buildings all over Philly, New York and beyond.

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Speaker 1: The usefulness of a door that's always opened and always

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Speaker 1: closed was recognized from the very beginning. In fact, Van

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Speaker 1: Cannell was even awarded Philadelphia's prestigious John Scott Medal in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine. But during the early twentieth century the

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Speaker 1: revolving door became more vital than ever. The Second Industrial

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Speaker 1: Revolution had changed the American landscape, especially in large cities,

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Speaker 1: where towering skyscrapers were beginning to dominate the skyline. Buildings

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Speaker 1: that tall had introduced a new problem for architects. They

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Speaker 1: realized that the stairwells and elevator shafts located in a

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Speaker 1: lobby created a vacuum in the building, and because of

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Speaker 1: the difference in air pressure between the inside and the outside.

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Speaker 1: This made the building's exterior doors harder to open and

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Speaker 1: to keep closed. If you've ever had trouble opening a

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Speaker 1: conventional swinging door, it was likely due to this change

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Speaker 1: in pressure. The revolving door solved the problem by allowing

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Speaker 1: air to enter and exit the building at a nearly

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Speaker 1: constant rate, ensuring that the pressure doesn't change so drastically. Initially,

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Speaker 1: it was that advantage alone that compelled big city architects

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Speaker 1: to include revolving doors and their designs, but once the

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Speaker 1: buildings were actually built, they realized there was an esthetic

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Speaker 1: benefit as well. Moving from the small, cramped compartment of

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Speaker 1: a revolving door into the wide open lobby of a

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Speaker 1: building made the space seem larger and more impressive. So

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Speaker 1: from then on, revolving doors became an easy and effective

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Speaker 1: way to create a dramatic entrance for patrons. Hollywood took

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Speaker 1: notice as well, and wasted no time in tapping into

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Speaker 1: the comedic possibilities of revolving doors. Charlie Chaplin's nineteen seventeen

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Speaker 1: film The Cure was one of the earliest demonstrations of

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Speaker 1: a now classic gag, someone going round and round and

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Speaker 1: a revolving door until they make themselves dizzy. A few

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Speaker 1: years later, the Three Stooges helped popularize another walking into

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Speaker 1: a revolving door as a group, only to get separated

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Speaker 1: from the others. The invention had provided a new versatile

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Speaker 1: tool for slapstick comedy, and it continues to draw big

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Speaker 1: laughs even today in sitcoms, cartoons, and sometimes even in

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Speaker 1: real life. By the nineteen twenties, Van Cannell's invention had

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Speaker 1: already become more useful than he ever imagined, but as

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Speaker 1: time went on, even more benefits were discovered. For example,

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Speaker 1: we now know that revolving doors greatly contribute to a

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Speaker 1: building's energy efficiency. That's because energy is lost every time

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Speaker 1: a door is opened in an air conditioned or heated building,

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Speaker 1: But since a revolving door maintains the seal of a building,

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Speaker 1: the amount of energy lost is vastly reduced. And while

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Speaker 1: saving energy is appealing enough, Van Cannel's design has also

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Speaker 1: proven useful in generating energy, as the revolution of the

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Speaker 1: doors can be used to power other features in a building.

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Speaker 1: The revolving door has remained largely unchanged since its invention,

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Speaker 1: a credit to the strength of Van Cannel's original design.

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Speaker 1: Some modern revolving doors now use four individual panels instead

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Speaker 1: of the originals three, and most frames are now made

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Speaker 1: from aluminium and steel rather than wood, but functionally the

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Speaker 1: design is more or less the same. Theophilis Van Cannel

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Speaker 1: exited the revolving door business in nineteen oh seven when

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Speaker 1: he sold his company, by then known as the Van

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Speaker 1: Cannel Revolving Door Company, to International Steel. That sale hastened

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Speaker 1: the transition from wooden doors to steel ones, and the

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Speaker 1: innovation proved a good one, as the manufacturer still exists

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Speaker 1: today as the International Revolving Door Company. As for Van Cannel,

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Speaker 1: he continued to tinker with other inventions, including the Witching

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Speaker 1: Wave's amusement ride, which was introduced at Coney Island in

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Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, the same year he sold his company.

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Speaker 1: Little is known about the inventor's personal life, except that

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Speaker 1: he never married or had any children. Sadly, the lack

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Speaker 1: of details about his private life gave rise to an

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Speaker 1: ugly rumor in the early two thousands. It started with

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Speaker 1: a satirical article claiming that Van Cannell's true inspiration for

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Speaker 1: the revolving door was his distaste for the social convention

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Speaker 1: of holding doors for women In the following years, many

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Speaker 1: researchers and journalists stumbled upon the article and took its

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Speaker 1: dry humor as fact, and as a result, many otherwise

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Speaker 1: reputable outlets began to paint Van Cannell as anti chivalry,

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Speaker 1: or in some cases, as a full blown misogynist. In reality,

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Speaker 1: there's no evidence to support the rumor, and the revolving

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Speaker 1: door hardly put an end to door holding. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it drew more attention to the issue than ever, as

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Speaker 1: people began to wonder whether it was nicer to let

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Speaker 1: someone enter a revolving door first or to go push

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Speaker 1: it yourself to get it started for the person behind you.

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Speaker 1: Van Cannell died of heart failure in nineteen nineteen without

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Speaker 1: ever having weighed in on the issue himself. But given

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Speaker 1: his real motivation for inventing the revolving door, I think

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Speaker 1: it's safe to say he didn't much care who used

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Speaker 1: them or in what order, so long as they didn't

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Speaker 1: let in that peske draft. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you enjoyed today's episode, consider following

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any feedback you'd like to share,

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Speaker 1: you can make sure we hear it by writing to

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Speaker 1: This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in

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Speaker 1: History class. Ju