Timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945)
Air conditioning is the cooling and de-humidification of indoor air for thermal comfort. Using a system of coils as a solution to cool and remove moisture from muggy air in a printing plant that was wrinkling magazine pages, Willis Carrier invented and manufactured the world's first mechanical air conditioning unit in 1902. Carrier's invention – encompassing the first system to provide man-made control over temperature, humidity, ventilation and air quality, was first installed as a solution to the quality problems experienced at a Brooklyn printing plant, Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company. Air conditioning not only spawned a company and an industry, but also brought about profound economic, social and cultural changes.
Leonard L. Northrup Jr.
After the War, Northrup went to work for Storm Vulcan, a Dallas company, where he invented a machine to clean aircraft engines. He also embarked on a venture to fit cars with air conditioning equipment, putting the machinery in the trunk and piping the cooled air through tubes in the headliner. This caught the interest of engineers from General Motors, who copied the system in Cadillacs in the late 1940s. "After market" automotive AC units were manufactured in Texas until the 1980s. He also sold some of the first air conditioning units, built by the Curtis Mathes Corporation, an early leader in manufacturing window units. Northrup married Jane Keliher and started a family in Dallas, where he designed and built one of the first single-family houses in the United States with central air conditioning. He founded a company to install air conditioning in residential and commercial buildings. With a Marketing Plan from G F Sweetman (CEO of American Awards Co), he became one of largest suppliers of Curtis Mathes fans and compressors in the nation. He also developed a company to manage, install, update, and clean air filtration systems.