The revolving door is most often thought of today, symbolically, in connection to various forms of workplace related dread. as cause of early morning pavlovian groans (christ! here I am again at this hell-hole) or as metaphoric short-hand for conflicts-of-interest, ethical oversight, and corruption. like snapshots from your last colonoscopy or a million dollar damien hirst painting the images conjured aint pretty. The revolving door was not always saddled with such negative connotations. There was a time when it was a symbol of modern man’s ingenuity, an artifact from our energized drive toward the future. Yet surprisingly, even in the glow of the revolving door’s youth, few people were aware of its true origins.
german door historians or “Türherstellers” will offer the following concerning the revolving door:
• H. Bockhacker of Berlin was granted German patent DE18349 on December 22, 1881 for “Thür ohne Luftzug” or “Door without draft of air.”
that’s about as far as their interest in the subject goes.
all the great door histories (like de grote geschiedenis van deuren and il glory dei portelli) mention Bockhacker but then shift focus to Theophilus Van Kannel, of Philadelphia who 7 years later was granted US patent 387,571 for a “Storm-Door Structure.” in many ways the story of the revolving door, known and forgotten, is really the story of Van Kannel.
commonly known facts about Van Kannel and his revolving door include:
• it is perfectly noiseless.
• it effectually prevents the entrance of, snow, rain or dust.
• it cannot be blown open by the wind.
• it excludes street noise.
• persons can pass both in and out at the same time.
• it prevents a direct path between the interior and exterior making it useful as a partial airlock to minimize heat loss from the building.
• it circumvents all that annoying “you first” “no you first” stuff.
• the world’s first revolving door was installed at Rector’s, a restaurant on Times Square in Manhattan, located on Broadway between West 43rd and 44th Streets in 1899.
largely forgotten facts about Van Kannel and his revolving door include:
• the original slogan for his door was “Always Closed.”
• it was marketed (in the victorian manner) as helping to avoid “noxious effluvia” and “baleful miasmas.” from a pamphlet put out by van kannel: It will save life, by preventing those deadly lung and throat diseases which are sure to overtake the unfortunate salesman, cashier or clerk whose duty keeps him near the constantly opening front door.
• van kannel was an irritable sort. in response to the customary reaction to his door he had this to say: ‘Just like a turn-stile,’ so say nine out of ten persons who first see it. As well may we say a tea-kettle is like a locomotive boiler.”
• van kannel originally intended his invention to be installed not only in public buildings but in private homes as well.
which brings us to the crux of things-
that van kannel’s invention turned out to be useful, in the ways we consider it to be so today, is something of a happy accident. that’s not to say van kennel didn’t have a purpose in mind, he spent years perfecting his idea after all, but if you run down the list of its supposed benefits you won’t come upon the intended one.
more than anything the world owes the invention of the revolving door to revenge.
it seems that when van kennel was a boy, still in the care of his mother but just on the cusp of cultural manhood, he found the rules of chivalry bothersome. in particular he refused to accept that he was expected to open the door for women and allow them to cross the threshold before him. a silly sort of quirk certainly but it was taken seriously enough by his mother that she eventually felt compelled to take action. family histories have it that at some point in his twelfth year she administered a bare bottomed spanking, during a salon in the family drawing room, in full view of 37 local mothers and daughters.
this very public shaming over matters of chivalry stuck with van kannel (no wonder- “spankophilus” being a whisper that seemed to follow his steps everywhere) and embittered him further toward the gentlemanly behavior society required.
had this been the only episode the world may have never had a revolving door to shuffle through. as it so happens, however, theophilus van kennel married a woman, who though beautiful and clever had an odd quirk of her own. young abigail van kennel refused to pass from one room of their apartments to another without the assistance of theophilus. she was willing to make many concessions to the new modern ways but her mother had taught her to take matters of chivalry very seriously indeed. “it is the measure of a man!” she’d said “not his inseam!”
theophilus had once tried to put his foot down over the matter, telling his wife one morning, “all this opening doors twaddle just will not do! i can not be rushing around my own home to usher you from room to room!” but he returned home in the evening to find abigail sitting defiantly just inside the bedroom door, right where he’d left her.
after this bit of cruelty on fates part became evident van kennel devoted his full focus to finding some way to sidestep this rule of chivalry or even perhaps create cause for a revision of the rules. he eventually found his answer in what we now call the revolving door.
you see the revolving door was not designed not to keep out snow, or to minimize heat loss, though it does both, but it was designed specifically so that whomever enters the door first is obliged to do all the pushing. so in point of fact, in th erevolving door’s case it would actually be most chivalrous for the man to proceed through the door first. he assumed people would rocognize this and presto- no more door holding! if of course tradition proved irrationally tenacious, as it traditionally did, at the very least the act of obliging women first passage would forever after be obliging them to open the door for you! a sneaky win / win proposition which was tremendously satisfying for such as he.
his own home, as well as the home of his mother, were outfitted with the first 14 revolving doors ever assembled.
in the years that followed, after his invention had taken root, though the rules of chivalry showed no sign of adapting, this little loophole in chivalry amused him to no end. he imagined all the women all over new york, being ushered dutifully into revolving doors by browbeaten sons and husbands “no, no, after you my dear!”
and
thatmy friends is the true, very nearly forgotten, secret history of the revolving door.
note: all factual bits are from James Buzard’s piece perpetual revolution while all exceptionally silly untruths are my own. i’ll leave it to you to sort out which is which.