Birth Name: | Schuyler Skaats Wheeler |
Birth Date: | May 17, 1860 |
Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
Death Place: | Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
Nationality: | American |
Occupation: | Electrical engineer |
Spouse: | Amy Sutton |
Schuyler Skaats Wheeler (May 17, 1860 – April 20, 1923) was an American electrical engineer and manufacturer who invented the electric fan, an electric elevator design, and the electric fire engine. He is associated with the early development of the electric motor industry, especially to do with training the blind in this industry for gainful employment. He helped develop and implement a code of ethics for electrical engineers and was associated with the electrical field in one way or another for over thirty years.
Wheeler was born in New York City on May 17, 1860. He was the son of James Edwin and Ann Wood (Skaats) Wheeler. His father, a lawyer in New York city, was the son of Aaron Reed Wheeler, a land speculator of Waterloo, New York, who came originally from Blackstone, Massachusetts. Wheeler's mother was the daughter of David Schuyler Skaats, the president of the First National Bank of Waterloo, New York. Skaats was an eighth generation descendant of Dominie Gideon Skaats, who had settled in Albany, New York, prior to 1650.