Philip H. Diehl, a German immigrant who'd lost everything in the 1871 Chicago fire. 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.