Carl prinzler

"And I'll mention one more thing we owe to the tragedy of the Iroquois. A salesman from an Indianapolis hardware store named Carl Prinzler was supposed to be in the audience that day, but as sometimes happens, plans went awry and Prinzler missed the performance. Haunted by the horrific loss of life of which he, save for a twist of fate, might have been a part, Prinzler vowed to try to do something about it. Teaming up with an engineer neighbor, Henry DuPont, and with the support of Prinzler's employer, he set about to try to create a door mechanism that would prevent people from being trapped inside a burning building, even when a door was locked. Five years later, in 1908, the team perfected a style of door hardware known as the panic release bar, anti-panic device, or simply the panic bar. The hardware store where Prinzler worked had a manufacturing branch that produced the device and marketed it under the name Von Duprin -- a brand name that still exists today as a division of Ingersoll-Rand -- taking the name from the principals in the venture, "prin" from Carl Prinzler, "Du" from Henry DuPont, and "Von" from the owner of the hardware store, Clemens Vonnegut, great-grandfather of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who spoke with obvious pride in several interviews of his family's contribution to fire safety."(Daliy Koas)