Welcome to Week One of our series celebrating black scientists and inventors. In this installment we’ll be looking at a pioneer in the world of inventing: Garrett Morgan. Garrett Morgan saved lives on the road with one invention, and made a daring rescue using another!

Morgan was born March 4, 1877 in Claysville, Kentucky and died July 27, 1963 (aged 86). Morgan saved many lives during his lifetime, and even more after, with his numerous life-saving inventions. Remarkably, with only a sixth grade education, Morgan’s passion for inventing and fixing things led him to make some of the most useful inventions around today. Garrett Morgan moved to Cincinnati, Ohio at age 16 in pursuit of employment. Morgan worked briefly as a handyman before moving to Cleveland, where he began repairing and constructing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer.

After opening his own sewing shop in 1907, Morgan grew complacent with simply repairing other people’s inventions and wanted to make his own. In 1912, after seeing firefighters struggle with smoke in the line of duty, he patented a safety hood. The safety hood protected people from smoke inhalation. Contrary to many faulty reports it was not a gas mask, but it did lead to the development of gas masks. Morgan’s invention employed a breathing tube that drew safe air from ground-level air and used a sponge to cool and filter incoming air. The safety hood acquired national acclaim after Morgan wore it to successfully rescue several men from a Lake Erie tunnel explosion. His safety hood was put to use in World War I by the U.S. Army and utilized by fire stations across the country. Morgan received a gold medal from the International Association of Fire Engineers for his contribution.

Garrett Morgan created another live-saving invention that we still use today. After witnessing a horrific accident at an intersection, following the rise of automobiles, Morgan patented a traffic control device. Morgan was granted a patent for his traffic control device in 1923. The device was not the first traffic signal, but it was the first three-position signal. Morgan’s device included a new position, besides just “stop” and “go”, called “caution”.

Garrett Morgan had profound impacts on the way we design safety devices today and his inventions saved myriad lives during his lifetime and led to other developments that saved even more.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZgUFAWddpQ]

Video Credit: Morgan, Garrett, Britannica Online for Kids. Web. 15 Jan. 2016.

More information on Black Inventors can be found at FamousBlackInventors.com

Article by: Jordan M. Joseph, Creative Writing Major at Oberlin College and regular contributor to both The Grape and The Oberlin Review. Jordan remembers creating his first baking soda volcano and ever since then has been fascinated by all things science. He has recently joined Science Matters as a special correspondent.