Dumbwaiters

It may have been difficult to distinguish a small-sized hand-powered goods lift from a large dumbwaiter in the era of lifting by muscle. However, when the latter moved into the palaces and manors of royalty and the aristocracy, it became refined to where it could be hidden away and discreetly move food and other small necessities between upper living floors and the kitchen and servants locations in the basement. The small car performed the same service in restaurants, allowing the noise and odor of cooking to be isolated from the patrons. No doubt, this was where the silent servant earned the name "dumb waiter"! The mini-lift may have been silent but it did not remain dumb. A 25-lb capacity car could carry correspondence as well as medication within a pharmacy or hospital. A 500-lb car could raise a keg of beer from the cool basement to a position underneath the first floor bar. And, the special "bullion lift" in England was designed to carry coin and gold bar within a bank. The dumbwaiter easily made the transition to electric operation with the drive at the top or bottom of the hoistway and the control evolved from a shout up the well to simple "Call and Send" push button, to elaborate systems in which a car would seek out a floor, unload its contents and travel to another floor for automatic loading. Distinguishing the dumbwaiter was its inability to handle a passenger -- no control ever existed in the car. Because of its modest size, dumbwaiters for two or three landing were eventually developed as packages for swift insertion on site.