Who is garrett morgan

In he opened a tailoring shop; with 32 employees, he manufactured suits, dresses, and coats. In he organized the G. Morgan Hair Refining Co. This company soon offered a complete line of hair-care products. In he opened his own repair shop, and soon launched a clothing business with his wife, an immigrant seamstress from Bavaria.

It was an era of difficulty for African Americans, but Morgan made money, becoming the first black man in Cleveland to own a car. He branched out into cosmetic products, joined a new organization called the NAACP , and soon was donating money to Negro colleges. In , he started a newspaper for African Americans, The Cleveland Call , and opened an all-black country club. In , he patented a mechanical traffic signal that he sold to General Electric. The Safety Hood Morgan's biggest venture was his safety hood.

As a young man, he had seen firefighters struggling to withstand the suffocating smoke they encountered in the line of duty. 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.

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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.

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