Garrett A. Morgan
Inventor of the three-phase traffic signal and the gas mask
three-phase traffic signal and the gas mask
Why This Person Is Included
Garrett Morgan invented the traffic signal modification that made modern traffic control possible and the gas mask that saved lives in World War I and industrial accidents. He sold his traffic signal patent to General Electric for $40,000 rather than operating it himself. He is in this curriculum as the inventor; what is less known is the entrepreneur — the man who ran a successful sewing machine and tailoring business before inventing, who understood the commercial value of his inventions, and who navigated a deeply segregated market for intellectual property.
Historical Significance
Morgan's traffic signal modification — the yellow caution phase between stop and go — created the operational logic that all modern traffic control systems use. His gas mask design was used by rescue workers in a 1916 Cleveland tunnel disaster and by soldiers in World War I. Both inventions demonstrate the pattern of Black inventors creating commercial infrastructure from which the profits were captured by others.
The Story
Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky, on March 4, 1877, to formerly enslaved parents. He moved to Cincinnati and then to Cleveland as a young man, teaching himself to repair sewing machines and eventually opening a sewing machine repair shop and tailoring business. He employed 32 workers and ran a prosperous small manufacturing operation before his inventions made him nationally known.
His gas mask — which he called the Morgan Safety Hood and Smoke Protector — was patented in 1914. In 1916, he used it himself to enter a tunnel under Lake Erie where workers were trapped after an explosion, rescuing survivors who would otherwise have died. The rescue made national news. He sold gas masks to fire departments across the country — until his race became known to some buyers, at which point some departments canceled their orders.
His traffic signal patent in 1923 added the third 'caution' position to the existing two-position (stop/go) traffic signals. He sold the patent to General Electric for $40,000 — a significant sum but a fraction of its eventual value as automobile adoption exploded. Morgan died on July 27, 1963, in Cleveland, having been recognized with a Gold Medal by the U.S. government and having seen the traffic signal patent produce enormous value for GE across the following decades.
Sources
- 1.Garrett Morgan. National Inventors Hall of Fame. invent.org↗