Wednesday, March 01, 2023

Garrett Morgan, invented the first widely used and easy to manufacture gas mask, and an early caution alarm between GO and STOP on a traffic signal! That's a lot of awesome, for one inventor!


One of his most famous inventions is a breathing device to protect firefighters. Called the Morgan Safety Hood, it was a precursor to the modern gas mask, which he improved upon over the next 2 years and in 1914 receive a patent. 

Garrett Morgan's safety hood was used in World War I and to save workers in a collapsed tunnel under Lake Erie in 1916. Wearing the Morgan Safety Hood, he, his brother Frank and two other volunteers entered the tunnel, returning with the individuals… both alive and dead. Cleveland's newspapers and city officials wrote him out of the story, lauding Tom Clancy, one of the volunteers, with the rescue effort. It would take years for the city to recognize his contributions.

In 1914, he would receive the first grand prize at the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation for his invention of the Morgan Safety Hood.
In 1917, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission reviewed this heroic act as a nomination for their award.

By the 1920s, automobiles were competing with horse-drawn carriages in the street of America. Morgan would witness an accident at an intersection involving a horse carriage and an automobile. The people in the carriage were flung to the street, the driver of the car was knocked unconscious, and the horse had to be shot.

This may have prompted the idea for his next, and equally famous invention, the three-way traffic signal in 1922. It became the first one patented in the United States on November 20, 1923. Morgan would start the GA Morgan Safety System Company and later sell the rights to General Electric Company for $40,000. 

The signal consisted of a tall pole with a bell on top, movable arms with the words “stop” and “go,” two of which were raised and lowered by a hand crank. While the crank was turning, the bell would alert pedestrians and drivers that a change was going to take place

https://www.blackhistory.com/2020/01/garrett-morgan-black-inventor-first-gas-mask-three-position-traffic-light.html
https://mancunion.com/2020/10/30/an-ode-to-garrett-morgan-the-inventor-of-the-smoke-hood/
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1922-g-a-morgan-first-traffic-signal-antique-paper-patent-print-greg-edwards.html
https://mancunion.com/2020/10/30/an-ode-to-garrett-morgan-the-inventor-of-the-smoke-hood/

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