Philip H. Diehl, a German immigrant who'd lost everything in the 1871 Chicago fire. Diehl pulled up stakes for the East Coast, where he went to work for the Singer Sewing Machine company. He took a sewing-machine motor, mounted a fan blade and attached the whole thing to the ceiling—thereby inventing the ceiling fan, which he patented in 1887. Later, as head of his own company, Diehl added a light fixture to the ceiling fan. In 1904, Diehl and Co. put a split-ball joint on an electric fan, allowing it to be redirected; three years later, this idea developed into the first oscillating fan.