Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877 – July 27, 1963) was an American inventor. His most notable inventions included a type of protective respiratory hood (or gas mask), a traffic signal, and a hair-straightening preparation.
| Born | March 4, 1877 (Claysville Community), Kentucky |
|---|---|
| Died | July 27, 1963 (aged 86) Cleveland, Ohio |
| Other names | Big Chief Mason |
| Occupation | Inventor, Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Inventor of a type of respiratory protective hood |
Garrett Morgan Activities to Celebrate Garrett Morgan the Inventor of the Traffic Light He is renowned for a heroic rescue in 1917 at Lake Erie in which he used his hood to save workers trapped in a tunnel system filled with fumes, after other rescue attempts had failed. He is credited as the first African American in Cleveland, Ohio, to own an automobile.
Safety hood
Garrett Morgan patented a safety hood and smoke protector after seeing firefighters struggling from the smoke they encountered in the line of duty and hearing about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Traffic signal
The first American-made automobiles were introduced to consumers just before the turn of the 20th century, and pedestrians, bicycles, animal-drawn wagons and motor vehicles all had to share the same roads. Between 1913 and 1921, a number of versions of traffic signaling devices, both mechanical and automated, were patented by various inventors. Of these, only a few saw production or implementation on public roads. Morgan's device first patented in 1923, was a hand-cranked, manually operated mechanical semaphore signal. His device had two key safety features: having an intermediate "all stop" signal state to give moving traffic time to stop before signaling cross traffic to proceed, and having a "half mast" position to indicate general caution at times when the device operator was not present.
