History of the United States II / Unit 4 USH2 0454 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Building Upward
The idea
Cities also grew upward. Brick walls could not carry buildings much higher than five or six storeys, Digital History says, but steel frames could, and the falling price of steel in the eighteen eighties made them affordable. Chicago's Home Insurance Building, completed in eighteen eighty-five, is counted as the first skyscraper. Tall buildings needed one more invention: in eighteen eighty-nine the Otis company installed the first electric elevator, and the skyscraper craze began.
In practice
A steel skeleton carrying the walls and floors of a building, and an electric elevator carrying its tenants to the top.
Where people slip
Neither invention alone made the skyscraper. Steel without the elevator gave floors no one would climb to; the elevator without steel had nothing tall to serve. The sources differ on details: the anchor gives the Home Insurance Building ten storeys, Digital History nine, and dates its design to eighteen eighty-four. Unit three's falling steel prices land here.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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