From The Children's Newspaper, 1931.

From Science: A Process Approach, Commentary for Teachers, 1974.

Have we fallen so low that we must "take the elevator up to the world"?  From East Tennessee State University's 1985 yearbook.

"Elevator boys in tights and cabarets for the passengers."  From the Duluth Evening Herald, 1914.

From Murray State University's 1985 yearbook.

From Ohio State University's College of Medicine's 1952 yearbook.

"One fine day."  From Language and How to Use It, Book 1, Teacher's Edition, 1970.

"Awkwardness in elevators."  From Toike Oike, 2005.

The sign says, "Flight insurance for this elevator on sale in the lobby."  With insurance costs what they are nowadays, if the elevator just keeps on going, one has no recourse.  From Presbyterian College's 1969 yearbook.

The word is disemelevatored.  From Philip K. Dick's spectacular novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  (From which the vastly inferior films were "inspired."  The novel is a masterpiece.)

The "part-of-you-left-behind" feeling when the lift starts, from The Sketch, 1911.  Here's a similar image from seven years later.

"Life, as I've often remarked, is an elevator."  The speaker doesn't so much mean that life has its ups and downs but rather that one gets smacked into reverse repeatedly ("biff!" and "boomp!").  His companion replies that most well-conducted elevators have somebody inside to keep them "from biffing and boomping up and down to no purpose."  The answer: "There ain't in life.  Or if there is, he's drunk most of the time.  Or else crazy."  (From Pearson's, 1909.)