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Inventor Elijah McCoy was born in Canada in 1843. He invented an automatic lubricator for oiling steam engines in 1872. The term "the real McCoy" is believed to be a reference about the reliability of Elijah McCoy's invention. Elijah McCoy was born in Canada. His African-American parents had fled from Kentucky to escape slavery. He showed an early talent for mechanical innovations, and in Ypsilanti, MI he devloped lubricators for steam engines in 1870. In 1882 he moved to Detroit, where he perfected his lubricating cup, still widely used to provide a steady supply of oil to machinery. He opened the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Co in 1920 and patented an improved airbrake lubricator, one of the some 50 patents he obtained during his lifetime.

Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in 1877 in Paris, Kentucky. Born into poverty and with only a fifth-grade education, he moved to Cleveland, OH and worked as a sewing-machine mechanic. By 1907 he had a patent for an improved sewing machine and began his own sewing machine business. In 1909 he discovered a substance that straightened hair (temporarily) and by selling it to African-Americans through his own G A Morgan Hair Refining Co, he achieved the financial security to allow him to pursue his other interests. He patented a ‘breathing device’ (1914), a hood that allowed the wearer to breathe safely in the presence of smoke, gases, and other pollutants. He worked hard to market this device, especially to fire departments, and often himself demonstrated its reliability in fires. In the South, where there was resistance to buying such a device made by an African-American, he demonstrated as an Indian, Big Chief Mason, and in a famous tunnel accident in Cleveland (1916), where he rescued several men, he was denied a medal from the Carnegie Hero Fund. In World War 1 his hood was adopted and then adapted to serve as a gas mask. He patented his automatic traffic signal (1923) and sold it to the General Electric Co. In the 1920s he collaborated in starting a newspaper for African-Americans, the Cleveland Call (later the Call and Post). He was also active in the Cleveland Association of Colored Men and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Otis Frank Boykin was born in 1920 in Dallas, Texas. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a carpenter. He worked as a laboratory assistant at the nearby University's aerospace laboratory. Otis attended Fisk University and Illinois Institute of Technology, but dropped out after 2 years because his parents could not afford his tuition. Boykin, in his lifetime, ultimately invented more than 25 electronic devices. One of his early inventions was an improved electrical resistor for computers, radios, televisions and an assortment of other electronic devices. Other notable inventions include a variable resistor used in guided missiles and small component thick-film resistors for computers. Boykin's most famous invention was likely a control unit for the artificial heart pacemaker. The device essentially uses electrical impulses to maintain a regular heartbeat. Boykin died of heart failure in 1982

101 Fast Facts - The Biography Channel website. Retrieved Feb 4, 2010 from http://www.biography.com/blackhistory/101-facts-inventions.jsp

Otis Boykin - Wikipedia website. Retrieved Feb 4, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Boykin


Black Facts In History - Inventors: Elijah McCoy, Garrett Augustus Morgan, Otis Frank Boykin by Black Talk Media Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 ....
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