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Two years later, on July 25, 1916,
there was an explosion in an underground tunnel beneath Lake Erie
near Cleveland. Thirty-two men were trapped, and Garrett and his
brother donned their gas masks and rescued them.
After the rescue, Morgan began receiving orders for his gas masks
from fire departments from around the country. But a strange thing
happened when people found out Garrett's identity -- they began
canceling their orders.
So Garrett hid his identity, which made it more difficult for him
to promote his gas masks.
Why would people cancel their orders when they learned of his
identity? Was he a criminal? Did he owe the IRS money?
No on both accounts. Then what was the big secret that was
mentioned in the headline?
You see, despite inventing the gas mask that would later save
thousands of lives in World War I, Garrett Morgan was resented
because he was black. When people began canceling their orders,
Morgan hired a white man to impersonate him to demonstrate the mask.
The Civil War had ended more than 50 years earlier, but there was
still a lot of racial discrimination in the country. But Garrett
Morgan's story does not end here, because there's something else
that he invented -- something that most of us use every single day
of our lives.
In 1923, Garrett invented the forerunner to the modern traffic
light. A much earlier version was invented in 1868 (nine years
before Garrett was born), and was installed at an intersection in
London, England. It consisted of a revolving gas lantern with red
and green lights. It was designed to control the traffic... of
horse-drawn buggies!
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Fast forward to the early 1920s in Cleveland, Ohio, where Garrett
one day witnessed a traffic accident between a car and a horse-drawn
buggy. He thought there must be a better way (this is how many
inventors get their inspiration, by the way), so he decided to try
to create a better traffic signal. His version featured automated
"stop" and "go" signs, and he received a patent for it in 1923. The
T-shaped traffic pole was manually operated and had three arms: a
"stop" arm, a "go" arm and an arm that said "stop" in each
direction.
This version served as the basis for modern traffic signals. By
the time General Electric bought the rights from him for $40,000,
Morgan's traffic signals were being used all over America.
Before he invented the traffic signal, he had established several
businesses, including a newspaper called the Cleveland Call. He did
pretty well as an inventor and as a businessman, especially when you
consider that he never went beyond grade school, although he hired a
tutor to teach him during his teenage years.
[Paul Niemann]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com. You can learn more about Invention Mysteries
by visiting the official
Invention Mysteries website.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2006
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