African American Inventors: ' The Elevator' - Alexander Miles

Can you imagine, if elevators did not have doors? me neither, I'm pretty sure someone would have eventually come up with the idea but I'm glad Alexander Miles improved the method of the opening and closing of elevator doors into an automatic mechanism that closed access to the shaft. Before his October 11, 1887 patent, people were forgetting to close the shaft which increased many accidents. In addition, he improved the closing of the opening to the elevator shaft when an elevator was not on that floor.