![]() ![]() Courtesy of US Department of Defense via Wikimedia Eventually, however, “the safety interval was standardized in a different traffic signal that superseded Morgan's design: the three-position signal with red, amber and green lenses" . Apparently concerned that racism against Blacks would again dissuade potential buyers, evidence suggests that Morgan sold the patent to the General Electric Company for $40,000 (about $612,000 today) General Electric installed three-armed traffic signals in cities across the country. The pause in traffic flow also provided a safe interval for pedestrians to cross the street. We are fortunate to have one of Morgan’s traffic signals in the National Museum of American History’s collections. This brief pause reduced the possibility of a collision caused by a vehicle continuing in motion after the STOP signal was displayed”. In 1923, he received US Patent 1,475,024 for his T-shaped, manually operated traffic signal that “stopped vehicles in both directions before changing the direction of traffic flow. ![]() Although traffic lights did exist at the time, Morgan saw a way to make them better. ![]() Safety measures were nearly nonexistent, and accidents were common. American city streets of the 1910s–1920s, for example, were a chaotic mess of pedestrians, carriages, wagons, horses, bicycles, and early cars. The theme of safety runs through other inventions by Morgan. By 1917, a year after the Lake Erie disaster, this type of hood was standard equipment (along with British and French designs) for the US Army during World War I. Not only did Morgan sell the hood to fire departments throughout the country, but he also won a contract with the US Navy. Occasionally, Morgan himself put on a Native American costume and called himself “Big Chief Mason,” perhaps in a nod to his mother’s ancestry. suggested removing “Garrett A.” and calling it simply the “Morgan Safety Hood.” Garrett Morgan also tried other ways to increase sales, like hiring White actors to conduct demonstrations and make sales at firefighter conventions. Morgan (no relation), with whom he struck up a surprising friendship. So Morgan sought the advice of the incredibly wealthy and famous White financier J. Morgan Papers (MS3534)ĭespite the demonstrated need, Morgan had troubling selling the potentially life-saving equipment-many White people did not want to buy a product made by a Black inventor. Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Garrett A. He also made a Black hair oil dye and invented a curved-tooth comb for hair straightening. His company offered a complete line of hair-care products and he invested his profits into creating other inventions.Ĭover of “Through Smoke and Fumes with Safety,” an advertising pamphlet for the National Safety Device Company, around 1914, WRHS:9035. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. This led him to discover accidentally that the liquid could also straighten Black hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. ![]() During this time, Morgan experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish to prevent them from burning fabric as they sewed. Two years later, he opened a tailoring shop. Morgan went into business for himself in 1907, establishing a shop to repair and sell sewing machines. This experience sparked Morgan's interest in how things worked and fueled the development of his first invention-a belt fastener for sewing machines. In 1895, he moved to Cleveland, where he built a reputation for repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. There he worked as a handyman for a wealthy White landowner and used some of his earnings to hire a tutor to continue his education. He attended a segregated school for six years before leaving home at age 14 to move to Cincinnati, Ohio. Garrett Morgan’s mother was Eliza Reed, who was the daughter of a Baptist minister and had both Native American and Black heritage. His father, Sydney Morgan, had been enslaved and was probably the son of his enslaver, Confederate Colonel John Hunt Morgan. Garrett Morgan was born in Kentucky on March 4, 1877, about a decade after the end of the American Civil War. Yet, it’s likely that most readers don’t know much, if anything, about him. I would like to share the fascinating story of arguably one of the most famous, prolific, and well-documented African American inventors, Garrett A. ![]()
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