Background
George Henry Corliss was the only son of Hiram and Susan (Sheldon) Corliss. He was born on June 02, 1817 at Easton, New York, United States where his father practised medicine and surgery.
George Henry Corliss was the only son of Hiram and Susan (Sheldon) Corliss. He was born on June 02, 1817 at Easton, New York, United States where his father practised medicine and surgery.
Corliss’s family moved to Greenwich, New York, when he was eight years old to permit hin to be properly educated. He proved to be a very apt student and showed a marked inclination toward mathematics and mechanics. He remained at school until he was fourteen, when, as the field for mechanical pursuit was quite limited, he entered the employ of William Mowray & Son as their general storekeeper. In this service he was clerk, bookkeeper, salesman, and official inspector and measurer of cloth turned out by the factory. After four years, he was sent by his father to Castleton Academy in Vermont. Here he remained for three years, after which he returned to Greenwich.
In 1838, Corliss established his own general store in town of Greenwich. His first real opportunity to apply his natural mechanical instincts was afforded him about this time as a result of persistent complaints of customers over the stitching in the shoes he sold. At an outlay of about $100 he devised, in a crude way, a machine for sewing boots, which consisted, in the main, of passing needles and thread through the heavy leather in opposite directions at the same time. A United States patent was granted him in 1842.
Two years later he went to Providence, Rhode Island, to try to market his invention. The firm of Fairbanks, Bancroft & Company, machine and steam- engine builders, undertook to assist him, and it was not long before they recognized his genius. To secure his services they offered him a position as a draftsman, provided he dropped the sewing machine idea. Corliss accepted, sold out his store in Greenwich, and moved with his young wife and two children to Providence. In less than a year he was admitted to the firm, and before another year had elapsed he had devised mechanisms that very soon revolutionized the construction and operation of steam-engines.
His first ideas for improvements in the steam- engine were formulated in 1846 when he was twenty-nine years old, and his first United States patent embodying his ideas was granted March 10, 1849 and reissued July 29, 1851. In 1848, and before receiving his patent, Corliss left Fairbanks, Bancroft & Company and joined with John Barstow and E. J. Nightingale of Providence, organizing a new company under the name of Corliss, Nightingale & Company. It was this company that built the first steam-engine embodying the Corliss features.
His invention consisted of rotary valves (separate ones for steam and exhaust ports) and a governor which by a system of levers controlled the valves and the admission of steam to the engine cylinder. Reciprocating steam-engines have not been greatly bettered either in steam or fuel or fuel economies since the introduction of engines operated with Corliss’s valve gear and drop cut-off, as the invention is called. By the technical world Corliss is ranked equally with Watt in the development of the steam-engine. Corliss’s company bought land in Providence for the erection of a steam-engine factory; by 1856 the new plant was completed, and the company was incorporated under the name of the Corliss Engine Company.
Corliss as president not only directed all the business activities but at the same time devised all the subsequent improvements in his engine mechanism. His first type of valve gear was improved in 1850, a second type was devised in 1852, a third in 1858, a fourth in 1867, a fifth in 1875, and a sixth and seventh in 1880. During this time, too, the business of the company grew at a prodigious rate until over one thousand men were employed in the plant. The principal features of the engine were copied by engine manufacturers, both in the United States and Europe, and Corliss had many infringements to fight.
esides his steam-engine inventions, he received patents for a gear-cutting machine, an improved boiler with condensing apparatus, and a pumping engine for water-works.
George Henry Corliss was known for the development of the steam engine, which was considered one of the more notable engineering achievements of the 19th century. It provided a reliable, efficient source of industrial power, enabling the expansion of new factories to areas which did not readily possess reliable or abundant water power. Corliss was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.
Corliss represented North Providence in the General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1868-1870 and was a Republican presidential elector in 1876.
Corliss was twice married; first, in January 1839, to Phoebe F. Frost of Canterbury, Conn. , who died in 1859; second, in 1866, to Emily A. Shaw of Newburyport, Massachusetts, who survived him.
