Have you ever thought about how elevators work while riding in one? I hadn’t either until recently, when I stumbled across the story of Alexander Miles. It’s amazing how we take for granted the simple act of elevator doors opening and closing automatically. But there was a time when this wasn’t the case, and the person who changed that was a Black barber with no engineering degree.
🧔🏾 From Cutting Hair to Cutting-Edge Invention
In the late 1800s, Alexander Miles was building a successful life in Duluth, Minnesota. Born in 1838 in Ohio, Miles started as a barber, but he wasn’t content with just cutting hair. While running his barbershop in the St. Louis Hotel, he was also developing hair products, investing in real estate, and becoming the first Black member of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce.
But it was a simple observation that would lead to his most important contribution. Back then, elevators were nothing like what we use today. Both the elevator car door and the shaft door had to be opened and closed manually. Imagine stepping into an elevator and having to remember to close two different doors before the elevator could move. Forget to close one, and you’re looking at a potentially deadly fall into an open shaft.
🛗 A Simple Solution to a Deadly Problem
For Miles, this wasn’t just a theoretical concern. Some accounts suggest he realized the danger while riding an elevator with his young daughter. Whether or not that specific story is true, we do know that Miles saw a problem that needed fixing.
His solution, patented in 1887, was brilliantly straightforward. He created a system where a flexible belt attached to the elevator car would interact with drums positioned along the shaft. When the elevator moved past these drums, it would trigger mechanisms that automatically opened and closed both doors at the right times.
No more relying on passengers to remember to close the doors. No more dangerous open shafts. Just a simple, mechanical system that made elevators significantly safer.
🏙️ Building the Modern World
It’s hard to overstate how important this invention was. Without safe, reliable elevators, the modern skyscraper wouldn’t exist. Our cities would look completely different. The vertical expansion of urban areas that defined the 20th century might never have happened.
Yet despite the significance of his contribution, Miles didn’t become a household name like some other inventors of his era. In 2007, he was finally inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, but for most of history, his story remained untold.
Every time we step into an elevator and the doors automatically close behind us, we’re experiencing the legacy of Alexander Miles – a barber, businessman, and self-taught inventor who saw a problem and decided to fix it.
What other inventions do we use every day without knowing who created them?