Alexander Miles -- USA

Alexander Miles, an African-American inventor who was best known for being awarded a patent in 1887, for an automatically opening and closing an elevator door electrically driven. Alexander improved on the method of opening and closing of elevator doors; and he also improved the closing of the elevator shaft opening when the elevator was not at that floor.  

Alexander Miles created an automatic mechanism that closed access to the shaft.  At that time elevator riders or operators were often required to manually shut a door to cut off access to the elevator shaft.  There had been many instances were they would forget to close the shaft door and as a result people fell to their deaths.

Alexander Miles was born in Ohio in 1838, he moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin where he earned a living as a barber.  After a move to Winona, Minnesota in 1870, he met his wife Candace J. Dunlap, a white woman born in New York in 1834. Together they had a daughter named Grace. Shortly after her birth, the family relocated to Duluth, Minnesota.