Garrett Morgan

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877 – July 27, 1963) was an African-American inventor and community leader.

He is known for his inventions which included a type of protective respiratory hood (or gas mask), a traffic signal, and a hair-straightening chemical. He is also known for a heroic rescue in 1916 in which he and three others used the safety hood device he'd developed to save workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, fifty feet beneath Lake Erie.  He is also credited as the first African American in Cleveland, Ohio, to own an automobile.

References

Other websites

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History - Waterworks Disasters 
Images from Morgan's patents

Category:1877 births
Category:1963 deaths
Category:American inventors
Category:Businesspeople from Kentucky
Category:People from Paris, Kentucky