Rome's Coliseum, for example, had 12 elevators that were used to hoist gladiators and wild animals to the stage level. Such tools, however, were used primarily to lift construction material and their existence is documented all the way to the nineteenth century. In some palaces, dumbwaiters were installed to bring the monarch's food more quickly then through the stairway. By then, in England, the steam machine was used to power certain lifting platforms, and a variation, the hydraulic pump (in which the fluid in the cylinder was thrust by steam), was also tested. Regardless of their potential use, these elevators all suffered from a major disadvantage—the platform might break loose from its attachment, thereby harming or killing passengers or the operators below. It comes as no surprise, then, that most elevators remained confined to use as freight lifts in factories. Otis's innovation, the elevator brake, however, would change this situation.
Elisha Graves Otis suffered from ill health throughout his life, also affecting his early attempts at establishing a business. In 1845 he moved to Albany, New York, where he worked as a master mechanic in the Tingley Bedstead Company. While there, he invented a railway safety brake and other devices to improve the running of turbine wheels.
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