At the turn of the 20th century, humidity threatened the reputation of Brooklyn’s Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Company’s high-quality color printing. After two summers of extreme heat disrupted business and caused swelling pages and blurry prints, the printing company found that a nascent cooling industry could offer help.

Willis Carrier, a 25-year-old experimental engineer, created a primitive cooling system to reduce humidity around the printer. He used an industrial fan to blow air over steam coils filled with cold water; the excess humidity would then condense on the coils and produce cooled air.

  • hansl
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    1 year ago

    It used to mean the end of the 19th, start of the 20th, but it evolved. No need to be snarky, I’m not fighting museums here.

    Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_of_the_century which has additional sources. Unfortunately most sources aren’t clear either (both Cambridge and Webster dictionaries state that it’s when a century ends and another begins, without more info if the century is specified).

    I’m just trying to help disambiguate.

    • Alto@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m just trying to help disambiguate.

      It comes off as needlessly pedantic