Product Code Database
A dumbwaiter is a small freight elevator or lift intended to carry food. Dumbwaiters found within modern structures, including both commercial, public and private buildings, are often connected between multiple floors. When installed in restaurants, schools, hospitals, retirement homes or private homes, they generally terminate in a kitchen. Limited Preview, Google Books, accessed August 26, 2008.
The term seems to have been popularized in the United States in the 1840s, after the model of earlier "dumbwaiters" now known as and .Quinion, Michael. World Wide Words: " Lazy Susan". 24 Apr 2010. Accessed 11 Aug 2013. The mechanical dumbwaiter was invented by George W. Cannon, a New York City inventor. He first filed for the patent of a brake system (US Patent no. 260776) that could be used for a dumbwaiter on January 6, 1883, Limited Preview, Google Books', accessed October 30, 2012. then for the patent on the mechanical dumbwaiter (US Patent No. 361268) on February 17, 1887. Limited Preview, Google Books'', accessed October 30, 2012. He reportedly generated vast royalties from the patents until his death in 1897., retrieved October 30, 2012.
Early 20th-century building codes sometimes required fireproof dumbwaiter walls and self-closing fireproof doors, and mention features such as buttons to control movement between floors and locks to prevent doors from opening unless the cart is stopped at that floor. Dumbwaiter lifts in London were extremely popular in finer homes. Maids used them to deliver laundry to the laundry room, making it unnecessary to carry dirty laundry through the house, saving time and preventing injury.
A legal complaint about a Manhattan restaurant's dumbwaiter in 1915—which also mentioned that food orders were shouted up and down the shaft—described its operation and limitations:
There ... great play between the cart of the dumb-waiter and the guides on which it runs, with the result that the running of the cart is accompanied by a loud noise. The rope which operates the cart of the dumb-waiter runs in a wheel with a very shallow groove, so that the rope is liable to and does at times slip off. ... The cart has no shock absorbers at the top, so that when it strikes the top of the shaft or wheel there is a loud report. ... The ropes of the dumb-waiter strike such wall at frequent intervals with a loud report. ... The dumb-waiter is often negligently operated, by running it faster than necessary, and by letting it go down with a sudden fall. Via Google Books. (Original from the University of California. Digitized August 3, 2007.)
More recent dumbwaiters can be more sophisticated, using electric motors, automatic control systems, and custom freight containers characteristic of other kinds of elevators. Recently constructed book Elevator in libraries and mail or other freight transports in office towers may be larger than many dumbwaiters in public restaurants and private homes, supporting loads as heavy as 450 kg (1000 lbs).
After defecting from the Soviet underground in 1938, Whittaker Chambers gave a stash of stolen documents to his nephew-in-law, Nathan Levine, who hid them in a dumbwaiter in his mother's house in Brooklyn. A decade later, Chambers asked his nephew to retrieve them (which Chambers referred to as his "life preserver"). Handwritten and typewritten papers therein came from Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White (and became known as the "Baltimore Documents"). Microfilm contained therein was subpoenaed and sensationalized (misnamed the "Pumpkin Papers" in the press) by Richard M. Nixon for HUAC.
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