Today In Black History
Alexander Miles, Black Inventor of Safe Automatic Elevator Door
Issue #586 Today In Black History, Tuesday, April 30, 2024
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Today’s Black History WOW!
Alexander Miles was an African American inventor and entrepreneur who was born on May 18, 1838, in Pickaway County, Ohio, the son of Michael and Mary Miles.
Around 1866, Miles married and moved his family to Duluth, Minnesota. Here, he became the first Black member of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce and operated a barber shop out of the St. Louis Hotel.
Miles is perhaps best known for his invention of the automatically opening and closing elevator doors, a design that revolutionized elevator safety and usability. Before Miles' invention, passengers had to manually open and close the doors of the elevator, a cumbersome and potentially dangerous process. With his new design, elevator doors would open and close automatically, making the ride much safer and more efficient.
He was awarded a patent for his automatic elevator door design in 1887.
The family moved to Montgomery, Alabama by 1889, where Miles was listed in the city directories as a laborer. In 1899, he moved to Chicago where he founded The United Brotherhood as a life insurance company that would insure black people, who were often denied coverage at that time. Around 1903, they moved again, to Seattle, Washington, where he worked in a hotel as a barber.
In addition to his work on elevator doors, Miles also patented several other inventions, including a hair straightening product and a safety mechanism for elevators.
Alexander Miles died in 1918 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007.
Today In Black History
In 1863, Sarah Thompson Garnet became the first African American female principal in the New York City public school system.
In 1983, Robert C. Maynard became the first Black person to own a major daily metropolitan newspaper when he bought the Oakland Tribune from Gannett.
In 1992, the final episode of “The Cosby Show” aired. The series ran for eight years and was frequently the highest-rated television show in America.
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