"Is it Safe?"

Trade shows provide a platform for marketing merchandise and sharing knowledge.  An idea, invention, or product is worthless if no one knows about it. The story below is one of many examples of the dynamic power of exhibitions.

The year: 1854.  The location: New York City.

Business and civic leaders in New York wanted to duplicate the success of London’s 1851 Great Exhibition. Unfortunately, “The 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations” was a financial failure. As a result, the show organizers elected to continue the event the following summer. To boost attendance, and generate more revenue, they hired the greatest showman of the nineteenth century, a man whose “American Museum” in New York City was attracting 400,000 people annually, a man named P.T. Barnum.

Barnum believed one had to give spectators a reason to spend their money. He realized that for an event to be successful, it was critical to entertain and engage the audience. For the 1854 Exhibition, he added new attractions and new artwork. He suggested exhibitors sell items directly off the show floor -- a startlingly original idea at the time, and one that would be copied at future expositions. He enticed entrepreneurs to promote new products; he featured a steam washing machine, a moveable freight platform, and the world’s first quadracycle.  And he paid a middle-aged inventor from Yonkers $100 to perform an hourly, death-defying demonstration. 

At show opening on the first day, in the center of the hall, a six-foot tall, bearded man stood on a platform with freight.  In front of the platform, stood the beardless Barnum.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen,” the well-dressed showman boomed. “Let me have your attention”

The crowd quieted.

“Gather around,” he bellowed. “Gather around.”

The spectators moved closer.  

“Look at him,” Barnum pointed.

A winch cranked.

The platform lurched upwards.

“Look at me, folks” the bearded man hollered as the stage moved higher.  “Look at me!” 

The crowd on the floor moved still closer, bunching together.

The platform suddenly stopped, jerking the elevated man a step forward.

“Should I cut the rope?” the man yelled.   

People looked up.  They moved even closer.

“Should I cut the rope?” he yelled again. “Do you think it’s safe?” 

Some in the crowd protested, “No! No!”  “Don’t!” 

Others cheered, “Yes.”  “Do it!” “Do it!” 

And so, at the age of forty-two, the inventor did just that: he grabbed an axe from atop a crate and severed the hoisting cable.  The platform dropped … and then the safety brake kicked in.

“All safe!” the bearded man smiled, raising his arms. “All safe!”  First there was a stunned silence … then, wild cheering. The safety brake worked. And it continued to work. Hour after hour. Day after day. Week after week.

Elisha Otis designed and constructed the first safety brake for elevators … and in doing so, he changed the future of high-rise construction. In 1852, there were no passenger elevators, only freight ones; and workers were too scared to ride with the freight because of the repeated accidents.  Three years after Otis’ demonstration, the first commercial passenger elevator was installed at Haughwout’s department store, on the corner of Broadway and Broome in New York City. It was the first; it wouldn’t be the last.

Passenger elevators today are so safe that people take them for granted.  In New York City alone, there are over 30 million elevator trips daily.  But without safe passenger elevators, or some similar invention, the world as we know it would be very different.  Think about it: There probably would be no buildings over six or seven stories high; there certainly would be no skyscrapers, without some type of safe, vertical transportation. 

After Elisha’s death in 1861, his two sons took over the business; and realizing the importance of tradeshows, they exhibited at events in Europe and installed elevators around the world. They demonstrated the machine in Paris at Expos in 1867 and 1878. They built the Washington Monument elevator in 1880. At the Exposition Universelle of 1889, Otis manufactured and installed elevators at the Eiffel Tower (despite the Fair’s initial stipulation that only French companies could be used for any construction).  They exhibited in Chicago in 1893. Then, at the turn of the century, again at an Exposition in Paris, the Otis Elevator Company unveiled the world’s first escalator.

Today there are over 2.6 million Otis elevators and escalators worldwide, moving two billion people daily.  When Elisha Graves Otis first exhibited, that tradeshow lost money; however, the company he founded did not.  In 2023, Otis employed 71,000 people, and generated revenues exceeding $14.2 billion.  In January of 2025, the company had a net worth of $38.15 billion.

Trade shows allow individuals and businesses the opportunity to share ideas, promote products, generate sales, and develop brands. Prior to the industry-specific trade shows of the mid-twentieth century, industrial expositions were often stand-alone exhibitions or a critical element of a World’s Fair. But by whatever name – Fair, Expo, Show, Exhibition -- trade shows work. They work very well, and sometimes products displayed at trade shows change the world around us.