Elisha Otis was born on August 3, 1811 in the state of Vermont and died on April 8, 1861. In 1852 he invented a safety device for elevators that prevented them from falling in case the clamping cable broke. The first people elevator was installed in New York in 1857. This invention favored the construcción of tall buildings and skyscrapers.
Louis Sullivan was born on September 3, 1856 in Boston and died on April 14, 1924. He lived and worked in Chicago, during the reconstruction of the city destroyed by the fire of 1871. At that time he dealt mainly with structural problems such as bridges and viaducts. He is known also for applying the principles of verticalism in the construction of skyscrapers and in 1896 he made a theoretical exposition of this way of projecting.
John Roebling was born on June 12, 1806 in Mühlhausen and died on July 22, 1869 in Brooklyn, New York. He was a civil engineer who stood out for being a pioneer in the design and construction of suspension bridges. He began manufacturing steel cable at his farm in Saxonburg in 1841, which allowed him to move forward in the construction of hanging structures. One of his most famous works is the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
Frederick Olmstead was born on April 26, 1822 and died on August 28, 1903. He was a landscape architect famous for designing urban parks. He designed Central Park and Prospect Park, in New York. Other of his projects were the coordinated system of public parks and avenues and the Stanford University campus.
