This is not quite as bad as the Archimedes question, and as with that one, at least most MQL contestants would probably know what answer was required.
But ... Elisha Graves Otis did not invent the elevator (or the lift, as we might call it in England). What he invented was the safety elevator; or, to be more precise, he invented a device that prevented the elevator from falling if the cable broke.
According to Wikipedia, "The earliest known reference to an elevator is in the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius [active in the 1st century BC], who reported that Archimedes ... built his first elevator probably in 236 BC. Some sources from later historical periods mention elevators as cabs on a hemp rope powered by hand or by animals."
Wikipedia goes on to describe an "ascending room", built as a tourist attraction in 1823 by two London architects.
Elisha Otis set up a business to manufacture toys in the 1840s, and moved on to making bedsteads. In the process he invented a turning machine, a safety brake for trains, and an automatic oven. He was put out of business when the stream he was using for power was diverted by the local authority, to be used for its fresh water supply. In 1851 he ended up as manager of an abandoned sawmill, which he was supposed to convert into a bedstead factory.
While cleaning up the factory, he needed a way to get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the factory. He had heard of hoisting platforms, but these often broke, and he was unwilling to take the risks. He and his sons designed a "safety elevator", and tested it successfully. Otis initially thought so little of it that he neither patented it nor requested a bonus from his superiors for it. After making several sales, and after the bedstead factory declined, Otis founded his own company to manufacture elevators.
Business was slow at first, but Otis saw an opportunity to publicise his product at the 1853 World's Fair in New York. He amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing to be cut. The platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt.
Otis's elevators were suddenly in great demand, and they helped to make multi–storey buildings a practicable possibility.
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