In 1856, the 23-year-old Benjamin Franklin Sturtevant invented a machine for making the little wooden pegs used to attach shoe soles to the uppers. He then invented another machine that cut veneer strips to be fed into his peg-making machine, followed by a toothpick-making machine.
By 1860 he employed several men to run his machines, which created large amounts of fine sawdust. Sturtevant responded to the dust problem by designing an exhaust fan. His design was so successful that he began manufacturing them - and became the first commercial blower manufacturer in the U.S. Subsequent patents indicate that Sturtevant continued to make his peg machines.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s Sturtevant introduced steam engines in both horizontal and vertical formats. They also designed and built their own electric motors to power their fans and blowers, and these motors were also sold separately.
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| Advertisement from April 1896 Cassier's Magazine |
The Westinghouse Electric Corp. purchased B. F. Sturtevant in 1945. In 1988, The Howden Group, acquired Davidson & Co., which included Sturtevant. Howden closed the division in 1989, but sold the Sturtevant Silentvane fan line—the first backwardly curved fan—to Acme Engineering and Manufacturing Corp. Acme dropped the Sturtevant name.
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