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Patent line drawing of a man shown from the side, front and back wearing a hood that encloses his whole head, with a long tube hanging from it to just above the floor.
WonderStory

Garrett Morgan, a Black inventor from Cleveland, wore the safety hood he had patented into a gas-filled tunnel under Lake Erie in 1916, after an explosion trapped workers there. He and his brother carried men out, some still alive. The hood had proved its worth, but racism kept him from the public credit he had earned.

Historical account and archival material — U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

TechnologyHistory

The story behind the card

Morgan was the son of formerly enslaved parents, had little schooling and started out repairing sewing machines. He sometimes marketed the hood by hiring a white actor to pose as its inventor, because many buyers were white fire officials; once newspapers printed his photograph, several southern cities cancelled their orders. Cleveland's Black press credited his rescue work when major newspapers did not, and when Mayor Harry L. Davis left him off the list of recommended heroes, Morgan protested in a letter. In 1923 he patented a traffic signal whose arms could be raised halfway to signal caution, and in 1905 he had discovered a hair-straightening cream by accident while testing a polish for sewing-machine needles.

Türkçe oku
Clevelandlı siyahi mucit Garrett Morgan, 1916'da Erie Gölü'nün altındaki bir tünelde patlama olup işçiler mahsur kalınca, patentini aldığı koruyucu başlığı takıp gaz dolu tünele girdi. Kardeşiyle birlikte içeriden insanları taşıdı; bazıları hâlâ hayattaydı. Başlık işe yaradığını kanıtlamıştı, ama ırkçılık yüzünden Morgan hak ettiği tanınırlığa kavuşamadı.

Morgan eski köle bir anne babanın oğluydu; az okula gidebilmiş, işe dikiş makinesi tamir ederek başlamıştı. Alıcıların çoğu beyaz itfaiye yetkilileri olduğu için başlığı bazen mucit rolüne soktuğu beyaz bir oyuncuyla tanıttı; gazeteler fotoğrafını basınca güneydeki bazı şehirler siparişlerini iptal etti. Büyük gazeteler kurtarmadaki rolünü yazmazken Cleveland'daki siyahi basın hakkını verdi; Belediye Başkanı Harry L. Davis onu ödüllendirilecek kahramanlar listesine almayınca Morgan bir mektupla itiraz etti. Morgan 1923'te, kolları yarıya kadar kaldırılarak “dikkat” işareti verebilen bir trafik işaretinin patentini aldı. 1905'te dikiş makinesi iğneleri için bir cila denerken, rastlantı sonucu saç düzleştiren bir krem de bulmuştu.

Sources and further reading

Image details

Drawing from Garrett A. Morgan's 1914 US patent for his "Breathing Device"; the long tube drew air from below the smoke.

US Patent 1,113,675 (G. A. Morgan, Breathing Device), sheet 1, 13 Oct 1914. US Patent and Trademark Office, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Image source · Public domain

Background reading: Garrett Morgan
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