With only an elementary school education, Garrett Morgan,
born in Kentucky on March 4, 1877, began his career as a sewing-machine
mechanic. He went on to patent several inventions,
including an improved
sewing machine and traffic signal, a hair-straightening product, and a
respiratory device that would later provide the blueprint for WWI gas
masks.
The inventor died on August 27, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Born in Paris, Kentucky, on March 4, 1877, Garrett Morgan was
the seventh of 11 children. His mother, Elizabeth (Reed) Morgan, was of
Indian and African descent, and the daughter of a Baptist minister. It
is uncertain whether Morgan's father was Confederate Colonel John Hunt
Morgan or Sydney Morgan, a former slave freed in 1863. Morgan's mixed
race heritage would play a part in his business dealings as an adult.
When Morgan was in his mid teens, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to
look for work, and found it as a handyman to a wealthy landowner.
Although he only completed an elementary school education, Morgan was
able to pay for more lessons from a private tutor.
But jobs at several
sewing-machine factories were to soon capture his imagination and
determine his future. Learning the inner workings of the machines and
how to fix them, Morgan obtained a patent for an improved sewing machine
and opened his own repair business.
Morgan's business was a success, and it enabled him to marry a
Bavarian woman named Mary Anne Hassek, and establish himself in
Cleveland. (He and his wife would have three sons during their
marriage.)
With only an elementary school education, Garrett Morgan,
born in Kentucky on March 4, 1877, began his career as a sewing-machine
mechanic. He went on to patent several inventions, including an improved
sewing machine and traffic signal, a hair-straightening product, and a
respiratory device that would later provide the blueprint for WWI gas
masks. The inventor died on August 27, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio.
