Garrett Morgan Essay

Garrett morgan was a very accomplished man who was self educated and really contributed to society. He invented the original traffic light and he invented the original gas mask which saved many people's lives in many dangerous situations.
Garrett Morgan was born in 1877 when it was a very hard time for black people to get jobs and money. Mr. Morgan was the first black man in Cleveland to own his own car. His father was half slave and half colonial. His race affected his career and life monumentally. Garrett morgan really had to push through racial adversity and hard times. He was only educated up to grade 6 and did not go to college. His first job was at a factory where he found out how much he was an innovator and an entrepreneur. He quickly learned how the machines worked and he started tinkering himself. He invented a traffic signal that was used by many people nationwide but he only ended up getting $40,000 profit from it. He did not get all of the money that he deserved for it. Garrett Morgan was most well known for making the very first gas mask. It was called the safety hood and covered your whole head. This invention did not sell well until he hired a white actor to pretend to be a salesman while Mr. Morgan was a native american chief. Mr. Morgan demonstrated how he could stay perfectly okay in a smoke

filled tent for 25 minutes and the crowd was amazed. His invention sold very well in the north of the USA and he ended up selling it to the US army and the navy to be used in world war one. He saved many lives.
The event that he is most noted for was when he went down into a mine shaft underneath Lake Erie and there was a mine explosion.

Him and a few brave others went down into the collapsed tunnel and saved 8 of the 30 workers with the use of Morgan's amazing safety hood. After the event, the news stories did not even mention Morgan even though he was the one who had gone into the tunnel first. He did not get rightly recognised for his actions for years and years until he finally got the true story out. His hood was recognised and started to sell amazingly well. Morgan died in 1963 of old age and he died with recognition of his deeds and contribution to the

world.

After witnessing a collision between and horse drawn carriage and an automobile, he decided to take action. His traffic light was a simple contraption with three signals, stop, go and a third one that stopped all traffic so that pedestrians could cross the streets safely. His manual hand cranked invention was used all around the USA. it saved many people and helped power the idea that people matter, no matter who they are. Right before he died he sold his traffic light to the General Electric Co. for $40,000.
He also invented a sewing machine attachment that made it work more efficiently. In those days sewing machines were all manually cranked and did not work very well. He started a small business for clothing and sewing supplies. He sold fairly well and made a lot of profit.
Garrett Morgan was a very successful man who inspires me. He contributed to the world so much and many people would not have survived if not for him. He saved thousands of people with his gas mask, he saves countless lives with his traffic signal that prevented accidents and he saved a lot of people a lot of time with his supper efficient sewing machine. Garrett Morgan will certainly go down in history as one of most innovative black men of the era.