The Untold Story of Garrett Morgan: Inventor of the Gas Mask, the Improved Traffic Light...and More!

On this Day, March 4, 1877, African-American businessman and inventor, Garrett Morgan was born.

The seventh of eleven children of two formerly enslaved parents, he was born in Kentucky.

Like many American children growing up at the turn of the century, Morgan had to quit school when he was just 14 years old, to work fulltime. Morgan was able to hire a tutor and continue his studies while working in Cincinnati. In 1895, he moved to Cleveland, where he began repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. This experience sparked Morgan's interest in how things worked, and he built a reputation for fixing them.

Madge Nelson became his first wife in 1896, but that union ended in divorce. In 1908 he married again to Mary Anne Hassek, and they had three sons.

His businesses thrived. In 1907, he and Mary Anne opened Morgan's Cut Rate Ladies Clothing Store. The shop, that made coats, suits, dresses, and other clothing, ultimately had 32 employees.

Around 1910, his interest in repairing other people's inventions waned, and he became interested in developing some of his own. He received his first patent in 1912.

His first invention during this period was a belt fastener for sewing machines. Morgan also invented a zigzag attachment for sewing machines.

An African-American businessman, in 1912, he invented a protective mask after seeing firefighters struggling from the smoke they encountered in the line of duty. His mask used a moist sponge to filter out smoke and cool the air. It also took advantage of the way smoke and fumes tend to rise to higher positions while leaving a layer of more breathable air below, by using an air intake tube that dangled near the floor.

The safety hood used a series of tubes to draw clean air of the lowest level the tubes could extend to. Smoke, being hotter than the air around it, rises, and by drawing air from the ground, the Safety Hood provided the user with a way to perform emergency respiration.

He filed for a patent on the device in 1912, and founded a company called the National Safety Device Company in 1914 to market it.

Another purpose of the National Safety Device Company was to manufacture and market gas masks that would be used in World War I.

A true guerrilla marketer, he was able to sell his invention around the country, sometimes using the tactic of having a hired white actor take credit rather than revealing himself as to its inventor. For demonstrations of the device, he also sometimes adopted the disguise of "Big Chief Mason", a purported full-blooded Indian from the Walpole Island Indian Reserve in Canada. He would demonstrate the device by building a noxious fire fueled by tar, sulfur, formaldehyde and manure inside an enclosed tent. Disguised as Big Chief Mason, he would enter the tent full of black smoke, and would remain there for 20 minutes before emerging unharmed.

His safety hood device was simple and effective, whereas the other devices in use at the time were generally difficult to put on, excessively complex, unreliable, or ineffective.

It had a hood to protect the eyes from smoke and air tubes that hung near the ground to draw clean air from beneath the rising smoke. Later models also incorporated an airbag that could hold about 15 minutes of fresh air. His invention was a predecessor to the gas mask.

It was patented in 1914, and awarded a gold medal two years later by the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

Morgan's safety hood was used in saving many lives during the period of its use.

Morgan also developed later models that incorporated an airbag that could hold about 15 minutes of fresh air.

His invention became known nationally when he led a rescue that saved several men's lives after a July 24, 1916 tunnel explosion under Lake Erie. Before Morgan arrived, two previous rescue attempts had failed. The attempted rescuers had become victims themselves by entering the tunnel and not returning. Morgan was roused in the middle of the night after one of the members of the rescue team who had seen a demonstration of his device sent a messenger to convince him to come and to bring as many of his hoods as he could. He arrived on the scene still wearing his pajamas, and brought his brother Frank and four of the hoods with him. Most of the rescuers on the scene were initially skeptical of his device, so he and his brother went into the tunnel along with two other volunteers, and succeeded in pulling out two men from the previous rescue attempts. He emerged carrying a victim on his back, and his brother followed just behind with another. Others joined in after his team succeeded, and rescued several more. His device was also used to retrieve the bodies of the rescuers that did not survive. Morgan personally made four trips into the tunnel during the rescue, and his health was affected for years afterward from the fumes he encountered there.

Cleveland's newspapers and city officials initially ignored Morgan's act of heroism as the first to rush into the tunnel for the rescue and his key role as the provider of the equipment that made the rescue possible, and it took years for the city to recognize his contributions.

City officials requested the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission to issue medals to several of the men involved in the rescue but excluded Morgan from their request. He believed that the omission was racially motivated. Later, in 1917, a group of citizens of Cleveland tried to correct for the omission by presenting him with a diamond-studded gold medal.

After the heroic rescue Morgan's company received order requests from fire departments all over the country. However, the national news contained photographs of him, and officials in a number of southern cities canceled their existing orders when they discovered he was black.

He was also given a medal from the International Association of Fire Engineers, which made him an honorary member.

By World War I, his breathing device was refined to carry its own air supply, making it a gas mask. However, upon their entry into the First World War, the United States Army adopted the British Small Box Respirator and French M2 Respirator as their standard anti-gas equipment.

Garrett Morgan didn’t stop there. Starting in 1905, he developed a successful line of hair care products that included a hair straightening solution. He was also, reportedly, the first African-American in Cleveland to own an automobile.

By 1920, Morgan had made enough money to start a newspaper, the Cleveland Call, which became one of the most important Black newspapers in the nation.

After Morgan had witnessed a serious accident at an intersection in 1922, he conceived the idea of his best known invention, the tri-color traffic signal. It regulated movement of vehicles with its stop, wait and go concept—the ancestor of today’s yellow light—that allowed drivers time to clear the intersection before crossing traffic entered it.

Though Morgan’s was not the first traffic signal (that one had been installed in London in 1868), it was an important innovation nonetheless: By having a third position besides just “Stop” and “Go,” it regulated crossing vehicles more safely than earlier signals had.

In November 1923 he received a patent for his traffic signal. He promptly sold the rights to General Electric Corporation for the manufacture of the improved traffic light.

Morgan developed glaucoma in 1943, which left him nearly blind. He died at the age of 83 in Cleveland on July 27, 1963, and was buried in Lake View Cemetery.

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