He was granted a patent on Nov. The signal featured three positions -- stop, go and an all-directional stop position to allow pedestrians to safely cross streets. A brilliant man, Morgan also invented a zigzag stitching attachment for manually operated sewing machines and made an oil hair dye and curved-tooth comb to straighten the hair of African-Americans.
He established the Cleveland Call newspaper in Additionally, some reports of the explosion named others as the rescuers. While the public's lack of acknowledgment for Morgan's and his brother's roles at the Cleveland explosion was undoubtedly disheartening, Morgan was a voracious inventor and observer who focused on fixing problems and soon turned his attention to all kinds of things, from hats to belt fasteners to car parts.
The first Black man in Cleveland to own a car, Morgan worked on his mechanical skills and developed a friction drive clutch. Then, in , he created a new kind of traffic signal, one with a warning light to alert drivers that they would need to stop, after witnessing a carriage accident at a particularly problematic intersection in the city.
Outside of his inventing career, Morgan diligently supported the African American community throughout his lifetime. He was a member of the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was active in the Cleveland Association of Colored Men, donated to Negro colleges and opened an all-Black country club. Morgan began developing glaucoma in and lost most of his sight as a result. The accomplished inventor died in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 27, , shortly before the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation centennial, an event he had been awaiting.
Just before his death, Morgan was honored by the U. Morgan improved and saved countless lives worldwide, including those of firefighters, soldiers and vehicle operators, with his profound inventions.
His work provided the blueprint for many important advancements that came later and continues to inspire and serve as a basis for research conducted by modern-day inventors and engineers. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.
Before Morgan, traffic signals only had two positions: stop and go. He purchased acres later that year in Wakeman, Ohio, and transformed it into an African American country club complete with a party room and dance hall.
Leo DeLuca is an award-winning writer from Dayton, Ohio. He lives in New York City. Follow Leo DeLuca on Twitter. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital.
One of the first Black women in U. Before security systems became a fixture in homes, an African American nurse Mary Van Brittan Brown, devised an early security unit for her own home. She spent many nights at home alone in Queens, New York while her husband was away, and felt unsafe with high rates of crime in her neighborhood. On top of that, police were unreliable and unresponsive. So she created a device that would help put her mind at ease. In , Brown invented a system that used a camera that could slide into and look through four peepholes in her front door.
She added other features to the system, including a microphone to speak to anyone at the door, a button to unlock the door, and a button to contact the police. She and her husband took out a patent for the system in the same year, and they were awarded the patent three years later in Home security systems commonly used today took various elements from her design.
Watch a preview now. With only an elementary school education, Black inventor and son of an enslaved parent , Garrett Morgan came up with several significant inventions, including an improved sewing machine and the gas mask.
However, one of Morgan's most influential inventions was the improved traffic light. Morgan's was one of the first three-light systems that were invented in the s, resulting in widespread adoption of the traffic lights we take for granted today.
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