What Happened
On October 11, 1887, Alexander Miles received U.S. Patent No. 371,207 for an improved elevator mechanism. Before his invention, elevator doors had to be opened and closed manually — a serious safety hazard that led to people falling into open shafts. Miles designed a system that automatically opened and closed both the elevator doors and the shaft doors as the elevator moved. His design was so effective that it became the standard for elevator safety and its core principle remains in use today. Miles was a successful Black businessman in Duluth, Minnesota, where he also owned a barbershop and real estate.
Why It Still Matters
Alexander Miles solved a problem that was killing people, and he did it in 1887 — in an America that was doing everything it could to keep Black people from owning anything, building anything, or being credited for anything. He patented his invention, built his business, and left a mark on the built environment that billions of people interact with every single day without knowing his name. That's the story of Black invention in America: everywhere, and mostly uncredited.
He saw a dangerous problem that everyone else had learned to live with, and he fixed it. That's what inventors do.
Around the Kitchen Table
How many Black inventors can you name off the top of your head? Most of us can name a few — Garrett Morgan, Madam C.J. Walker, maybe Lewis Latimer. But the list goes on for pages. What does it mean that we weren't taught these names in school? And what would it have meant to us if we had been?
Today on Grown Folks Bizness
History and Tech Without the Tears. Alexander Miles didn't just invent something — he patented it, protected it, and built a business around it. Today we're talking about what it means to own your ideas in the digital age.
Sources
USPTO · BlackPast · Smithsonian
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