Garrett morgan family
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Black Inventor Garrett Morgan Saved Countless Lives with Gas Mask and Improved Traffic Lights
Just before midnight at the close of a hot summer day in 1916, a natural gas pocket exploded 120 feet beneath the waves of Lake Erie. It happened during work on Cleveland’s newest waterworks tunnel, a 10-foot-wide underwater artery designed to pull in water from about five miles out, beyond the city’s polluted shoreline. The blast left twisted conduit pipes littering the tunnel floor and tore up railroad tracks inside the corridor, with noxious smoke curling off the rubble. When the dust settled, 11 tunnel workers were dead.
Two rescue parties entered the tunnel searching for survivors. But they lacked proper safety equipment for the smoke and fumes; 11 of the 18 rescuers died. Some 11 hours later, desperate to save anyone still alive, the Cleveland Police turned to Garrett A. Morgan—a local inventor who called himself “the Black Edison”—and the gas mask he had patented two years earlier.
“He rustled his brother Frank,” says the invento
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Diverse Voices: Inventor Garrett Morgan
I would like to share the fascinating story of arguably one of the most famous, prolific, and well-documented African American inventors, Garrett A. Morgan. Yet, it’s likely that most readers don’t know much, if anything, about him.
Garrett Morgan was born in Kentucky on March 4, 1877, about a decade after the end of the American Civil War. His father, Sydney Morgan, had been enslaved and was probably the son of his enslaver, Confederate Colonel John Hunt Morgan. Garrett Morgan’s mother was Eliza Reed, who was the daughter of a Baptist minister and had both Native American and Black heritage. He attended a segregated school for six years before leaving home at age 14 to move to Cincinnati, Ohio. 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. In 1895, he moved to Cleveland, where he built a reputation for repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. This experience sparked Morgan's interest in how things worked and fueled t
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Garrett Morgan
American inventor and entrepreneur
Garrett Augustus Morgan Sr. (March 4, 1877 – July 27, 1963) was an American inventor, businessman, and community leader. His most notable inventions were a type of three-way traffic light,[1] and a protective 'smoke hood'[2] notably used in a 1916 tunnel construction disaster rescue.[3][4] Morgan also discovered and developed a chemical hair-processing and straightening solution. He created a successful company called "G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company" based on his hair product inventions along with a complete line of haircare products and became involved in the civic and political advancement of African Americans, especially in and around Cleveland, Ohio.
Early life and education
Morgan was born in 1877 in Paris, Kentucky,[5][6] an almost exclusively African American community. His father was Sydney Morgan, a son and freed slave of Confederate General John H. Morgan of Morgan's Raiders.[5] His mother, also a freed slave, was Elizabeth Reed, da
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