Inventor Who Made Elevators Safe and Enabled the Skyscraper Era
May 18, 1838 – May 7, 1918
🇺🇸 United States Security & SafetyAlexander Miles was born on May 18, 1838, in Duluth, Minnesota, during an era when African Americans faced systematic exclusion from economic opportunity and social advancement. Yet Miles would defy these limitations to become one of the wealthiest Black businessmen of his era and an inventor whose innovation would make modern cities possible. His automatic elevator door system, patented in 1887, transformed building safety and enabled the vertical expansion of urban centers that defined the 20th century.
Unlike many African American inventors of his era who struggled against poverty and limited education, Miles came from a background of relative privilege. His family had achieved financial success in business, giving young Alexander opportunities that most Black Americans could only dream of. He received a quality education and learned business principles from an early age, developing the entrepreneurial mindset that would make him wealthy long before his most famous invention.
Miles established himself as a successful businessman, owning and operating a barbershop in Winchendon, Massachusetts. But this was no ordinary barbershop—it was a sophisticated establishment that catered to wealthy clientele and served as a social hub for the community's elite. Miles understood that service businesses could be highly profitable when executed with excellence, and his barbershop became known for its quality and sophistication.
From his barbershop success, Miles expanded into real estate development, purchasing properties and buildings in several cities. He had a keen eye for valuable real estate and the business acumen to make profitable investments. By the 1880s, Miles owned substantial property holdings and lived in a mansion in Duluth—a remarkable achievement for any American in that era, extraordinary for an African American facing constant discrimination and legal barriers designed to prevent Black wealth accumulation.
His wealth gave Miles something precious: freedom to pursue his interests and ideas without the desperate pressure of survival that constrained most inventors of his background. He could afford to spend time developing and perfecting innovations, to pay for patent applications and legal protection, and to test his ideas thoroughly. This financial independence was crucial to his success as an inventor.
Miles lived in an era of rapid technological advancement. The late 19th century saw transformative innovations in transportation, communication, manufacturing, and building construction. Elevators—devices that could lift people and goods vertically through buildings—had existed since the 1850s, but they remained dangerous, unreliable, and frightening to many people. This danger limited the practical height of buildings and made elevator operation require specially trained operators who constantly managed the machinery.
The danger that prompted Miles' invention was both obvious and terrifying: open elevator shafts. Early elevators required operators to manually open and close two sets of doors at each floor—the door to the elevator car itself and the door to the shaft opening on each floor. This manual operation created constant danger. If an operator forgot to close the shaft door after the elevator departed, the next person approaching might step into an empty shaft and fall to their death.
Similarly, if the elevator moved while doors were still open, passengers could be struck by passing floor structures or fall out of the moving elevator. Fingers and limbs were caught between doors and elevator cars. The litany of elevator accidents in newspapers of the 1880s was horrific: people crushed, people falling down shafts, people struck by moving elevators, operators maimed by the heavy mechanical doors.
The story goes that Miles was inspired to solve this problem during a personal experience. While traveling with his daughter on an elevator, he witnessed a near-accident when someone almost stepped into an open elevator shaft because the operator had forgotten to close the shaft door. The moment of terror as his daughter nearly fell crystallized for Miles the desperate need for an automatic safety system that wouldn't depend on human operators remembering to perform every step correctly every time.
Whether or not this specific incident occurred exactly as described, the danger was undeniably real. Elevator accidents were common enough that many people avoided elevators entirely, preferring to climb stairs even in tall buildings. This fear limited the practical height of buildings—even with elevator technology available, buildings couldn't get much taller than five or six stories if people were too frightened to use the elevators reliably.
Alexander Miles approached the elevator safety problem with both an inventor's creativity and a businessman's practicality. He understood that any solution needed to be reliable, affordable to implement, and compatible with existing elevator systems. His innovation was elegant in its simplicity: a mechanical system that would automatically open and close both the elevator car door and the shaft door simultaneously, and that would prevent the elevator from moving if the doors were open.
Miles' system used a series of levers, pulleys, and mechanical linkages connected to the elevator car. As the elevator approached a floor, the mechanism would engage with fixtures in the shaft, automatically opening both the shaft door and the elevator car door together. When the elevator was ready to move, the doors would close automatically, and the elevator would not move until both doors were fully closed and secured.
This automation removed the human error factor that caused most elevator accidents. Operators couldn't forget to close doors because the doors closed themselves. People couldn't step into empty shafts because the shaft doors were closed unless an elevator was actually at that floor. The elevator couldn't move with open doors because the mechanism prevented it.
On October 11, 1887, Miles received U.S. Patent No. 371,207 for his "Elevator" invention. The patent specifically described the automatic door-closing mechanism and its safety features. This patent represented not just a clever mechanical device but a fundamental reimagining of elevator safety—shifting from relying on perfect human performance to engineering automatic protections into the system itself.
The timing of Miles' invention was perfect. American cities in the late 19th century were experiencing explosive growth. Urban populations were expanding rapidly as industrialization drew people from farms to factories, and as immigration brought millions of newcomers to American shores. Cities needed to house, employ, and serve all these people, but urban land was limited and expensive.
The solution was to build upward—to create tall buildings that could accommodate many people and businesses on a small plot of land. But building upward required safe, reliable elevators. Elisha Otis had invented a safety brake in 1853 that prevented elevators from falling if the cable broke, making elevators mechanically safer. Miles' automatic doors made them operationally safer, addressing the human factors that caused most accidents.
Together, these safety innovations made people comfortable riding elevators to great heights multiple times per day. This comfort enabled the skyscraper era. In the 1890s and early 1900s, buildings began reaching unprecedented heights: ten stories, then fifteen, then twenty and higher. The Flatiron Building in New York (1902), the Woolworth Building (1913), and eventually the Empire State Building (1931) were all made possible by elevator innovations that included Miles' automatic door safety systems.
The economic impact was staggering. Skyscrapers allowed cities to accommodate far more economic activity on expensive urban land. They became symbols of American dynamism and progress. The concentration of businesses in tall buildings created efficient hubs for commerce, finance, and communication. Modern cities with their distinctive skylines of tall buildings owe their existence in part to elevator safety innovations like Miles' automatic doors.
Alexander Miles' success as both businessman and inventor placed him in an unusual position. He was wealthy at a time when most African Americans lived in poverty. He held valuable patents at a time when Black intellectual contributions were systematically devalued or stolen. He lived in a mansion and owned substantial real estate at a time when many states and localities were passing laws specifically designed to prevent Black Americans from accumulating wealth or owning property.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the systematic dismantling of the brief progress made during Reconstruction. Jim Crow segregation laws were spreading across the South and infiltrating Northern cities as well. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision enshrined "separate but equal" as constitutional, giving legal sanction to segregation. Lynching terrorized Black communities, and white riots destroyed prosperous Black neighborhoods in cities across America.
In this context, Miles' wealth and success were remarkable but also precarious. Successful Black businessmen and professionals were often targets of white resentment and violence. Many successful Black communities were destroyed by white mobs—Tulsa's Black Wall Street in 1921 being only the most famous example. Miles had to navigate a society that simultaneously benefited from his innovations while denying him basic civil rights and equal treatment.
Despite these challenges, Miles appears to have maintained his business success and wealth throughout his life. He continued to live in Duluth, operating his businesses and managing his real estate holdings. He was active in his community and known as a successful entrepreneur and inventor. His life demonstrated that Black Americans could achieve extraordinary success despite systematic oppression—though it shouldn't have required such extraordinary ability just to prosper.
Alexander Miles continued his business activities into the early 20th century, though details of his later inventions and business ventures are sparse in historical records. This scarcity itself reflects the systematic exclusion of African American achievements from historical documentation—white historians and journalists of the era rarely considered Black inventors newsworthy unless they fit particular stereotypes or served particular narratives.
Miles died on May 7, 1918, in Duluth, just eleven days before what would have been his 80th birthday. By then, elevators with automatic door systems had become standard in buildings across America and Europe. Millions of people rode elevators safely every day, protected by safety innovations that included Miles' automatic door mechanism. Yet most of those people had no idea that an African American inventor had contributed to the technology they relied upon.
For decades after his death, Miles' contributions were largely forgotten or ignored in mainstream historical accounts. History books credited white inventors and entrepreneurs with building modern cities while erasing the contributions of Black innovators like Miles. It was only in the late 20th century, as historians began systematically recovering the lost history of African American inventors, that Miles received appropriate recognition.
In recognition of his contributions to elevator safety and building technology, Alexander Miles was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This honor, though posthumous and delayed by generations, formally acknowledged what should have been obvious: that Miles' automatic elevator door system was a crucial innovation that made modern urban life possible and saved countless lives by preventing elevator accidents.
Today, every elevator with automatic doors—which is to say, virtually every elevator in existence—is a descendant of innovations that Alexander Miles pioneered. The specific mechanisms have evolved with newer technologies, electric systems replacing mechanical linkages, computerized controls replacing purely mechanical governors. But the fundamental principle remains: doors open and close automatically, synchronized between car and shaft, and elevators cannot move with open doors.
These safety features are so universal and reliable that we take them completely for granted. People enter elevators without fear, trusting that shaft doors will be closed until an elevator arrives, confident that the elevator won't move while doors are open. This trust, this safety, this mundane reliability enables modern urban life. Without it, skyscrapers would be impractical, cities would sprawl rather than rise, and the efficient vertical organization of modern buildings would be impossible.
Alexander Miles' story also challenges the mythology of American innovation and entrepreneurship. The standard narrative celebrates individual white male inventors and industrialists as if they alone built modern America. But innovation has always been more diverse and collaborative than these simplified stories suggest. Black inventors, immigrant inventors, women inventors—all contributed crucial innovations, often while facing discrimination that white inventors never experienced.
Miles succeeded despite a system designed to prevent his success. He became wealthy despite laws and customs aimed at keeping Black Americans poor. He patented valuable inventions despite an educational system that denied quality education to Black students. His achievements make us wonder: how much more could he and others like him have accomplished in a truly equitable society? How many potential inventors never got the chance to develop their talents because they faced barriers that Miles, through exceptional ability and some good fortune, managed to overcome?
Every time we step into an elevator and the doors close automatically, every time we arrive safely at our destination in a skyscraper, we benefit from Alexander Miles' innovation. His legacy is literally built into the infrastructure of modern cities. He deserves recognition not as an exception or curiosity, but as one of the many diverse inventors whose contributions built the technological foundations of contemporary life.
Miles' automatic elevator doors made vertical transportation safe and reliable, enabling skyscrapers and modern cities. His innovation is used in billions of elevator rides worldwide every day.
Alexander Miles' automatic elevator door system fundamentally transformed urban architecture and made modern cities possible. Before his innovation, elevator accidents were so common that many people avoided elevators entirely, limiting the practical height of buildings to what people would willingly climb. His safety improvement made people comfortable riding elevators daily, enabling the vertical expansion of cities that defined 20th-century urban development.
The principle Miles established—that elevator safety should be engineered into automatic systems rather than dependent on perfect human performance—became a cornerstone of modern safety engineering. This approach influenced not just elevator design but safety thinking across industries. The idea that machines should have built-in safeguards preventing dangerous operations is now fundamental to industrial design, from automobiles with sensors preventing unsafe operation to industrial equipment with mandatory safety interlocks.
Every skyscraper, every tall office building, every high-rise apartment building exists in part because Miles and other inventors made elevators safe and reliable enough for mass use. The efficient vertical organization of modern buildings—with hundreds or thousands of people working or living in structures that rise dozens of floors—requires elevators that people trust completely. That trust comes from safety features including automatic doors that won't allow the elevator to move unsafely.
Miles' success as both inventor and businessman also represents an important counter-narrative to racist stereotypes and historical exclusion. Here was a Black man who became wealthy through business acumen, who lived in a mansion, who created valuable intellectual property and successfully monetized it. His existence disproves claims that African Americans lacked the ability to innovate or succeed in business—claims that were used to justify discrimination throughout his lifetime and beyond.
Today, billions of elevator rides occur globally every day, the vast majority of them in elevators with automatic doors descended from Miles' innovation. Most people never think about elevator safety—they simply trust that doors will open and close properly, that elevators won't move unsafely, that they'll arrive at their destination without incident. This mundane reliability, this complete trust, represents the greatest success of Miles' innovation: safety so effective it becomes invisible.
Alexander Miles deserves recognition alongside other inventors who made modern urban life possible. His automatic elevator doors rank with steel-frame construction, electric lighting, and other crucial innovations that enabled cities to grow vertically. Every time we step into an elevator in a tall building, we should remember that an African American inventor helped make that safe, reliable, everyday technology possible—and wonder how many other contributions by inventors of color have been forgotten or ignored by a history that often celebrated only white achievement.
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