Garrett
Augustus Morgan
Gas Mask
Inventor
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So, you want the "real McCoy?" That
means you want the "real thing," what you know to be of the highest quality,
not an inferior imitation. The saying may refer to a famous African-American
inventor named Elijah McCoy. He earned
more than 50 patents, but the most famous one was for a metal or glass
cup that fed oil to bearings through a smallbore tube. Machinists and engineers
who wanted genuine McCoy lubricators may have originated the term, "the
real McCoy."
McCoy was born in Ontario, Canada,
in 1843, the son of slaves who had fled Kentucky. Educated in Scotland,
he returned to the United States to pursue a position in his field of mechanical
engineering. The only job available to him was that of a locomotive fireman/oilman
for the Michigan Central Railroad. Because of his training, he was able
to identify and solve the problems of engine lubrication and overheating.
Railroad and shipping lines began using McCoy’s new lubricators, and Michigan
Central promoted him to an instructor in the use of his new inventions.
Later, McCoy moved to Detroit where
he became a consultant to the railroad industry on patent matters.Unfortunately,
success slipped away from McCoy, and he died in an infirmary after suffering
financial, mental, and physical breakdown.
Jan
Ernst Matzeliger was born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana in 1852.
He immigrated to the United States at age 18 and went to work in a shoe
factory in Philadelphia. Shoes then were hand made, a slow tedious process.
Matzeliger helped revolutionize the shoe industry by developing a shoe
lasting machine that would attach the sole to the shoe in one minute.
The shoe lasting machine adjusts
the shoe leather upper snugly over the mold, arranges the leather under
the sole and pins it in place with nails while the sole is stitched to
the leather upper.
Matzeliger died poor, but his stock
in the machine was quite valuable. He left it to his friends and to the
First
Church of Christ in Lynn, Masschusetts.
Garrett
Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1877. As a self-educated
man, he went on to make an explosive entry into the field of technology.
He invented a gas inhalator when he, his brother, and some volunteers were
rescuing a group of men caught by an explosion in a smoke-filled tunnel
under Lake Erie. Although this rescue earned Morgan a gold medal from the
City of Cleveland and the Second International Exposition of Safety and
Sanitation in New York, he was unable to market his gas inhalator because
of racial prejudice. However, the U.S. Army used his device as gas masks
for combat troops during World War I. Today, fire fighters save lives because,
by wearing a similar breathing device, they are able to enter burning buildings
without harm from smoke or fumes.
Morgan used his gas inhalator fame
to sell his patented traffic signal with a flag-type signal to the General
Electric Company for use at street intersections to control the flow of
traffic.
Dr.
Patricia E. Bath’s passionate dedication to the treatment and prevention
of blindness led her to develop the Cataract Laserphaco Probe. The probe,
patented in 1988, is designed to use the power of a laser to quickly and
painlessly vaporize cataracts from patients’ eyes, replacing the more common
method of using a grinding, drill-like device to remove the afflictions.
With another invention, Bath was able to restore sight to people who had
been blind for over 30 years. Bath also holds patents for her invention
in Japan, Canada, and Europe.
Bath graduated from the Howard University
School of Medicine in 1968 and completed specialty training in ophthalmology
and corneal transplant at both New York University and Columbia University.
In 1975, Bath became the first African-American woman surgeon at the UCLA
Medical Center and the first woman to be on the faculty of the UCLA Jules
Stein Eye Institute. She is the founder and first president of the American
Institute for the Prevention of Blindness. Bath was elected to Hunter College
Hall of Fame in 1988 and elected as Howard University Pioneer in Academic
Medicine in 1993.
The aroma of sausage and scrapple
cooking in kitchens along the east coast of American has made it a little
easier for kids to get up in the morning. With quickened steps to the breakfast
table, families enjoy the fruits of the diligence and hard work of Henry
Green Parks, Jr. He started the Parks Sausage Company in 1951 using
distinctive, tasty southern recipes he developed for sausage and other
products.
Parks registered several trademarks,
but the radio and television commercial featuring a child’s voice demanding
"More Parks Sausages, mom," is probably the most famous. After consumer
complaints about the youngster’s perceived disrespect, Parks added the
word "please" to his slogan.
The company, with meager beginnings
in an abandoned dairy plant in Baltimore, Maryland, and two employees,
grew into a multi-million dollar operation with more than 240 employees
and annual sales exceeding $14 million. Black Enterprise continually cited
H. G. Parks, Inc., as one of the top 100 black firms in the country.
Parks sold his interest in the company
for $1.58 million in 1977, but remained on the board of directors until
1980. Parks also served on the corporate boards of Magnovox, First Penn
Corp., Warner Lambert Co., and W.R. Grace Co., and was a trustee of Goucher
College of Baltimore. He died on April 14, 1989, at the age of 72.
Next
page > African American Innovators
- The Washer Woman Turned Millionaire
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