188. Garrett Morgan Safety Hood
It looked like a large rubber squid had swallowed a man’s head and wrapped its tentacles around his sides. But it let firefighters breathe in smoke, and it was cheap, lightweight, and simple to put on. Patented in 1914, Garrett Morgan’s safety hood sold briskly to over 500 fire departments in the country.
Morgan succeeded by hiding his race: he hired a white actor to play the inventor and demonstrated the hood himself as a Native American named Big Chief Mason. But in Cleveland, authorities knew the inventor of the hood was black. In 1916, a gas explosion under Lake Erie trapped workmen digging a tunnel. Two sets of rescuers went in, most of whom never emerged. Roused by a 4 a.m. phone call, Morgan and his brother rushed to the scene with masks. They entered the quarter-mile-long tunnel four times, rescuing two men—including the project superintendent, whom Morgan saved by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—and retrieving the bodies of four others. Morgan was still wearing his pajama bottoms.
He was denied the compensation and awards other rescuers received, so he wrote Mayor Harry Davis an impassioned letter: “I am not a well-educated man; however, I have a Ph.D. from the school of hard knocks and cruel treatment.” Private citizens gave Morgan a gold-and-diamond medal, saying, “Your deed should serve to help break down the shafts of prejudice with which you struggle, AND is sure to be a beacon light for those that follow you in the battle for life.”[1]
Special thanks to David McGee for suggesting Garrett Morgan.
Links:
“Garrett Morgan” - John H. Lienhard, The Engines of Our Ingenuity, University of Houston
Garrett Morgan Saved Lives After a 1916 Explosion, But Some Refused to Call Him a Hero – Tyler Piccotti, Biography, February 21, 2024
Garrett Morgan: The Gas Mask – Lemelson-MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, n.d.
Descendants of Cleveland's 1916 Waterworks Tunnel disaster meet for the first time – Roxanne Washington, Cleveland.com, July 25, 2016 (paywall)
Of Courage and Caution: Garrett Morgan, United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.
Garrett A. Morgan Breathing Device Patent No. 1,113,675 (PDF)
This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.
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