The need to cool the air in summer has existed for thousands of years, and many methods have been devised to achieve it. However the first modern air conditioners as we know them emerged in the early 1900's.
The concept of controlling the temperature of a room through programmed machines might be new but cooling buildings is a practice which has its roots in the ancient times. Different societies had adopted different techniques for cooling buildings.
The Romans used to do it by circulating aqueduct water though the walls of their houses while the Chinese inventor Ding Huan of the Han Dynasty invented the Rotary Fan for the purpose of cooling. Similarly, buildings in medieval Persia had cisterns and wind towers for cooling purposes while ventilators were invented in Medieval Egypt for the purpose of causing air ventilation and cooling the environment.
However, the very first modern electrical air-conditioning unit was created by the New York based Willis Haviland Carrier way back in 1902. After graduating from Cornell University, Carrier was given a job at a forging company in Buffalo and was put in charge of designing a machine that would improve the process control of manufacturing in a printing plant.
The creation by Carrier wasn't restricted to just temperature control but it also controlled humidity. Carrier used the concept of heating through the use of steam and also turned that process inside out to create a cooling effect. To do this he pioneered the idea of sending air through refrigerated coils to cool it and control the moisture content of the air.
This allowed him not only to cool a room, but also control the humidity level. For printing purposes this was a great breakthrough because paper absorbs a great deal of water, and affects the ink alignment significantly, so controlling the temperature and humidity of a room mean far more efficient printing.
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