African-American Inventors

Garrett Augustus Morgan

Driving is one of the past-times of Americans and people in many other countries.  The drive to the supermarket would be much more perilous had it not been for the enlightened mind of Garrett Augusts Morgan.  He is the inventor of, among other things, the traffic signal.

Garrett Augusts Morgan, Sr. was born in 1877 in Paris, Kentucky.   He was the son of former slaves and found it very difficult to go to school in between doing his chores.  Although he was only able to attend school for a few years, he had already developed the drive to invent something.

When he was a teenager, he moved with his family to Cincinnati, Ohio.   While he was there he worked and made enough money to hire a tutor to supplement his limited education.

Morgan worked in a sewing machine repair shop and became proficient at repairing machines.  Companies far and wide heard of his prowess as a machine repairman and offered him jobs in their factories, Morgan stuck to his dream and opened his own sewing machine repair shop in 1907.  Inside his own shop, Morgan also had tailoring facilities and employed 32 people.

But Morgan was destined for bigger things.  The concept of the assembly line was introduced into the automobile industry and the Ford Motor Company began to mass produce automobiles.  This caused major complications on the roads as bicycles, animal-powered wagons, and gasoline-powered vehicles began to clog the roadways.   There were many accidents, one of which Morgan witnessed between a horse-drawn carriage and an automobile.  He knew something had to be done to alleviate the situation.

Though other inventors realized the problem and also began to devise apparatus to regulate traffic, Morgan was the first to apply for and acquire a patent.   Morgan received his United States patent on November 20, 1923 and he also patented his invention in Great Britain and Canada. This is a picture of his traffic signal.

But Morgan did not stop there.  On July 25, 1916, Morgan was called to a rescue operation after an explosion in an underground tunnel under Lake Erie.   He made national news for using the gas mask he invented to save the trapped men.   This is a picture of Morgan at the site as he was rescuing the men.

After the rescue, Morgan's company was deluged with requests from fire departments around the country who wanted to purchase the new masks.

After some refinements, Morgan's gas mask was used be the U. S. Army during World War I.  In 1921, Morgan was awarded a patent for a Safety Hood and Smoke Protector. Two years later, a refined model of his early gas mask won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety, and another gold medal from the International Association of Fire Chiefs.  He was frequently invited to conventions and public exhibitions to demonstrate how his inventions worked.