February 11, 2022 - Garret Augustus Morgan

Today, February 11, 2022, marks the celebration of National Inventors Day, so it is only appropriate that today Lyles Station Historic School and Museum recognizes Garret Augustus Morgan, one of the country’s most successful African-American inventors.
Morgan obtained several patents for his inventions, including a hair-straightening product, a gas mask that would go on to save the lives of many miners and others through the years, and something we all deal with on an almost daily basis: the traffic light.
As a young entrepreneur, Morgan started his own sewing machine repair business and established a newspaper-the Cleveland Call.
The son of former slaves, Morgan completed a sixth-grade education, but after moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, he found employment working for a wealthy landowner and used his earnings to pay for a private tutor. Later in Cleveland, Ohio, he found work at local sewing machine factories where he learned how to fix sewing machines and went on to obtain a patent for a belt fastener for sewing machines, as well as the zig-zag feature, and opened his own sewing machine and tailoring shop, which also led to his own clothing manufacturing business.
It was at this shop that Morgan developed his chemical hair straightener. He had to deal with some woolen fabric that had been scorched and began experimenting with a chemical solution that ended up straightening the cloth. He tested this on a neighbor’s dog, then on himself.
The result of his hard work was a hair straightening cream he patented and sold through his own business: G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company, a highly successful company that provided him with the financial security to pursue other inventions.
One of those, the “safety hood,” Morgan patented in 1914, designed to provide its wearers with the ability to safely breathe while in the presence of smoke, gases, or other pollutants. Morgan marketed his device to fire departments, but to avoid any racial discrimination against his “safety device,” he hired an actor, a white man, to impersonate him during presentations to the public. While Morgan himself didn’t serve in the military in WW I, his invention, the prototype for the gas masks used in World War I, assured him First Place at the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation in New York City. While Morgan himself didn’t serve in the military, his invention was responsible for saving the lives of American soldiers during the War.
Two years later in 1916, just before midnight on a hot July night, a natural gas pocket exploded beneath Lake Erie in Cleveland’s new waterworks tunnel. The blast trapped twenty workers, killing eleven tunnel workers on site, leaving noxious smoke emanating from the tunnel. Due to the lack of proper safety equipment, eleven of the eighteen rescue workers died as well. The police turned to Morgan and his gas masks to save the remaining workers. Morgan and his brother Frank drove to the lakefront with gas masks filling the car. Both Morgans donned the safety helmets themselves and outfitted other rescue team members who descended over 128 feet into the toxic fumes to rescue the remaining workers and retrieve the bodies of those killed by the noxious gasses.
Morgan, who called himself a Black Edison, then saw a need for better news coverage of the African-American community in Cleveland and established the Cleveland Call in 1920.
Alert to opportunities for serving the community and saving lives, Morgan was alarmed when he witnessed a traffic accident involving a car and a horse-pulled buggy at a busy intersection. He then designed a traffic signal, a tall post that rotated with movable arms signaling “stop” and “go.” He patented his life-saving device in 1923 and sold the rights to it to General Electric for $40,000.
Morgan’s motto should inspire others:
"If a man puts something to block your way,
the first time you go around it,
the second time you go over it,
and the third time you go through it."
Just don’t go through Morgan’s traffic light!