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Garrett Morgan, American Inventor

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877 - July 27, 1963) was an African-American inventor and community leader. He first experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish and prevented the needle from scorching fabric as it sewed. In 1905, he accidentally discovered that the liquid could also straighten hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. He is renowned for a heroic rescue in 1916 in which he and three others used the safety hood device he had developed to save workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50 feet beneath Lake Erie. The Morgan traffic signal was a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: Stop, Go and an all-directional stop position. This third position halted traffic in all directions to allow pedestrians to cross streets more safely. His .S patent granted on November 20, 1923. He was a member of the Prince Hall Freemason fraternal organization, a predominantly black Freemason group. He was a member of the NAACP and donated money to Negro colleges. He developed glaucoma in 1943, and was functionally blind and in poor health in his later life. He died in 1963 at the age of 86.
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Title:
Garrett Morgan, American Inventor
Caption:
Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877 - July 27, 1963) was an African-American inventor and community leader. He first experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish and prevented the needle from scorching fabric as it sewed. In 1905, he accidentally discovered that the liquid could also straighten hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. He is renowned for a heroic rescue in 1916 in which he and three others used the safety hood device he had developed to save workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50 feet beneath Lake Erie. The Morgan traffic signal was a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: Stop, Go and an all-directional stop position. This third position halted traffic in all directions to allow pedestrians to cross streets more safely. His .S patent granted on November 20, 1923. He was a member of the Prince Hall Freemason fraternal organization, a predominantly black Freemason group. He was a member of the NAACP and donated money to Negro colleges. He developed glaucoma in 1943, and was functionally blind and in poor health in his later life. He died in 1963 at the age of 86.
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Image size:
3039 x 3900 px | 33.9 MB
Print size:
25.7 x 33.0 cm | 10.1 x 13.0 in (300 dpi)
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