Transcript

2.20.26 · History Hour

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Speaker 1: Who was Garrett A. Morgan And how many lives over
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the years has he saved? He want to know. Stay
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tuned and I'll tell you welcome. This is radioi's history
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and I am your reader for the day. Joseph Bolt.
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I'm so happy to be with you today. And before
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we begin today's show, I just want to remind you,
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as you already know, that RADIOI is listener driven and
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we welcome any comments suggestions about our programming. So if
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you have any thoughts, please call us at eight five
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nine four two two six three nine zero and let
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us know what you're thinking. RADIOI is a reading service
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that's intended for people who are blind or have other
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dici abilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
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Sources for today's show will be sighted along the way,
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and so let's get started about who this guy is
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Garrett Morgan. Just before midnight, at the close of a
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hot summer day in nineteen sixteen, a natural gas pocket
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exploded one hundred and twenty feet beneath the waves of
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Lake Erie. It happened during work on Cleveland's newest waterworks tunnel,
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a ten foot wide underwater artery designed to pull in
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water from about five miles out beyond the city's polluted shoreline.
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The blast left twisted conduit pipes littering the tunnel floor
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and tore up railroad tracks inside the corridor, with noxious
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smoke curling off the rubble. Two rescue parties entered the
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tunnel searching for survivors, but they lacked the proper safety
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equipment for the smoke and the fumes. Some eleven hours later,
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Garrett A. Morgan's phone rang. The voice on the other
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end tells him that there's been a natural gas explosion
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in a waterworks tunnel about four miles off Cleveland's shoreline
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and one hundred and twenty feet below Lake IARI's surface.
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Many men are trapped and likely dead from smoke and elation,
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including several initial rescue crews. Morgan may be the survivors
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only hope. In nineteen sixteen, Cleveland was swelling to become
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the nation's fifth largest city. Its growing population was overwhelming
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the sewer system and dangerously contaminating the Lake Erie water supply.
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Water Works tunnels extending miles beyond the worst of the pollution,
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offered the promise of cleaner drinking water. To create the tunnels.
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Workers known as sand hogs had to burrow beneath the
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lake bed through sand and gypsum and limestone and mammoth
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reserves of natural gas. The latter were formed millions of
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years ago after dead plants and animals mingled with silt
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and sand or calcium by carbonate, and over time became
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buried deep under lake Erie. Multiple layers of sediment added
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pressure and heat to this mixture, eventually transforming the carbon
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and hydrogen it contained into natural gas. More than three
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trillion cubic feet of it lie beneath the lake, and
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just before midnight on July twenty fourth, nineteen sixteen, the
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sand hogs struck an explosive pocket. Garrett Augustus Morgan was
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the son of a formerly enslaved mother and father. Garrett
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was born about a decade after the end of the
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American Civil War on March fourth, eighteen seventy seven, in Paris, Kentucky.
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His mother, Eliza Reed, was of Native American black and
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white descent, and Garrett's father, Disney Morgan, was half black
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and half white. Eliza and Disney were both slaves who
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belonged to Confederate general and cavalryman John Hunt Morgan, who
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led Morgan's raiders in the Civil War. Garrett's parents were
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freed when John Morgan was killed by a Union infantryman
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in eighteen sixty four. Garrett was the seventh of eleven children,
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and his early childhood was spent attending school and working
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on the family farm with his brothers and sisters. Garrett
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attended a segregated school for six years before leaving home
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at age fourteen to move to Cincinnati. There, he worked
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as a handyman for a wealthy white landowner and used
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some of his earnings to hire a tutor to continue
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his education. In eighteen ninety five, Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio,
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where he went to work as a sewing machine repairman
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for a clothing manufacturer, teaching himself as much as he
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could about sewing machinery and experimenting with the process. This
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experience led to one of his first inventions, that of
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a belt fastener for sewing machines. In nineteen o seven,
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Morgan was hired away by a competitor who made him
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that company's first black machinist. There he met a Bohemian
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Czech immigrant seamstress named Mary Hasseck. She was white and
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he was Black. When their relationship was discovered, they were
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given a choice either knock it off or leave. Garrett
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Morgan's granddaughter, Sarah Morgan, says quote, so they decided to leave.
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The two married. It was one of the first interracial
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marriages in Cleveland, and from that relationship they had three children,
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John P. Garrett A Junior, and Cosmo H. Morgan. Garrett
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and Mary opened a children's clothing shop. Garrett built and
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built rather and maintained the machines, while Mary sold the garments.
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Later he opened the Morgan Skirt Factory. The business ventures
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allowed the couple to buy a house on Harlem Avenue.
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A historic marker as currently being refurbished there. But like
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all entrepreneurial inventors, Morgan needed to keep creating, so in
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nineteen o nine he expanded the enterprise to include a
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tailoring shop, then employed thirty two people. The new company
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turned out coats and suits and dresses, all sewn with
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equipment that Morgan himself had invented and made. During this time,
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Morgan experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles
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a high polish to prevent them from burning fabric as
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they sowed. Well. This led him to discover accidentally that
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the liquid could also straighten black hair. He made the
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liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan
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Hare Refining Company to market it. He also made a
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black hair oil dye and invented a curved tooth comb
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for hair straightening. His company offered a complete line of
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hair care products, and he invested his profits into creating
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other inventions. Here now we'll pick up the story back
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where we began when Garrett Morgan was called by the
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police to help them with the underground explosion in Cleveland.
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By the time that Morgan was called, two rescue parties
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had already tried to search for and save any survivors,
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but without the proper safety equipment for the smoke and fumes,
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only seven of the eighteen rescuers were currently alive. But
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why did the police put their faith in Garrett. Well,
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we have already learned thus far that Morgan had a
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creative mind, and after all, he had improved the sewing
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machine with his belt fastener device, he had invented various
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hair products. What invention might he have created to help
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out in this particular situation. Morgan's invention appropriate for the
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Cleveland situation was born out of an earlier tragedy a
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few years earlier. On in March twenty five, nineteen eleven,
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of fire enveloped New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Company, killing one
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hundred and forty six garment workers, most of them young
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female immigrants who were locked in the factory. The incident
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put the inadequacy of fire codes and safety equipment on
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national display, and Morgan, who had himself once worked in
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Cleveland's booming garment industry, decided to try his hand at
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an effective mask. He attacked the problem that had stymied
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inventors for years, smoke inhalation. Pulmonary complications following smoke inhalation
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account for about seventy seven percent of fire related deaths,
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says Sumata Cotri, a pulmonologist at Cleveland Clinic, and he
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goes on further to say that it's mostly from carbon
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monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide is very attracted to hemoglobin, the
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oxygen carrying protein in our red blood cells, and it
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attaches to the red blood cells much easier than oxygen.
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Blood cells need to release oxygen to the body, but
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when they are bound by carbon monoxide, oxygen isn't getting
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to your muscles, your tissues, organs, and brain. You are
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basically suffocating from the inside at the cellular level. Morgan
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knew carbon monoxide tends to linger at roughly the level
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of a standing person's head, whereas cleaner air hovers closer
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to the feet, So he decided to design a device
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to draw air through a long tube that hung near
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the ground like a tail. It diverged at the tailbone
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level into two hoses that snaked up either side of
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the wearer's rib cage and below the underarms, finally entering
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the mask, a hood resembling a beekeeper's helmet, like serpentine
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walrus tucks. The safety hood he created had two tubes.
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One tube sent fresher air from the floor level up
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until the breathing mask, and the second tube used the
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valve to prevent the exhaled air from being inhaled again
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from behind. The system resembled a y and its dangling
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intake tube was reminiscent of an elephant's trunk. These animals,
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in fact, seemed to have fired up Morgan's imagination. Sandra
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Garrett's granddaughter says, quote, as I understand it, he took
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the inspiration from elephants at the circus when it was
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boiling hot, he saw elephants stick their trunks out of
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the tent to get fresh air end quote. Because of
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Morgan's brilliant observation, a simple but practical device resulted from it.
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Once he was satisfied with his product, he applied for
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a patent, gathered some investors, and established the National Safety
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Device Company to make and sell the hoods. The patent
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application stated that quote, firemen could enter a house filled
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with thick, suffocating gases and smoke and would be able
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to breathe freely for some time. The official patent on
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this came through in nineteen fourteen. He called it the
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Morgan National Safety Hood, but his Safety Hood proved difficult
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to sell. His ingenuity, however, eventually won out. After many
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failed attempts to sell what he called his Hood, Morgan
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created a theatrical scheme to bypass potential buyer's bigotry. In
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nineteen fourteen, he hired a white actor to pose as
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the inventor. Morgan then disguised himself, filled a tent with
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noxious smoke, and cued the actor to entertain the crowd
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as Morgan strapped on his breathing device and entered the tent,
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where he waited for nearly half an hour before emerging
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safely to an aghast audience. Brisk sales followed and newspapers
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reported the demonstration. And this is how the Cleveland Police
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Department came to know about Morgan and his device. So again,
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let's get back to the explosion. Morgan arrives at the
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water Crib, which is an offshore structure that collects lake water.
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He arrived a peculiar sight, wearing the beige safety hood
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with breathing tubes snaking out of it, while still in
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his pajama bottoms. Morgan descends into the smoky depths, accompanied
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only by his brother Frank and a few other brave souls.
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Many on liquors, including Cleveland Mayor Harry Davis, are skeptical
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of Morgan's recently debuted wood, fearful the invention that claims
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to protect the wearer from smoke while pumping in fresh
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air will do little to save them from the toxic
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air below. Well, tense moments tick by. Finally a figure
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emerges from a dark hole holding a barely conscious man.
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Morgan has found a survivor. And after hours of searching,
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seven more men were brought out and saved, but twenty
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two had perished in what would become known as the
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Lake Erie Crib disaster. At the scene, the mayor hels
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Morgan as a hero and his safety hood for saving lives,
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yet many newspaper accounts in the following days fail to
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mention Morgan's name. Months later, when the Carnegie Hero Fund
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Commission hands out awards for the day's heroics, it is
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not Morgan who receives it. Based on news reports that
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downplayed Morgan's role, the Carnegie board decided to give the
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prestigious hero award to a minor figure in the rescue
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effort who was white, rather than to Morgan. Morgan protested
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and wrote a scorching letter to Cleveland Mayor Harry Davis, stating, quote,
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I am not a well educated man. However, I have
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a pH d from the School of Hard Knocks and
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Cruel Treatment end quote. But the Carnegie Institution insisted that
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he hadn't risk as much as the other person had
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because he had safety equipment. It seems that Morgan's African
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American heritage hung over the whole affair. In nineteen twenty,
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Morgan moved into the newspaper business when he established The
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Cleveland Call, a weekly newspaper that was a predecessor of
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what became the city's major African American newspaper, The Call
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and Post. Morgan also helped found the Cleveland Association of
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Colored Men, where he served as treasurer until it merged
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with the NAACP. He remained a lifetime member. As the
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years went on, he became a prosperous and widely respected
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businessman and was able to purchase a home in an
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automobile invented by Henry Ford in nineteen oh three. In fact,
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Morgan was the first African American to purchase an automobile
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in Cleveland, and it was Morgan's experience while driving along
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the streets of that city that inspired him to invent
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an improvement to traffic signals. The inventor witnessed the horrific
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accident between an automobile and a horse drawn cart at
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an intersection. Once again, his ingenuity kicked in. Before Morgan,
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traffic signals only had two positions, stop and go. My
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grandfather's great improvement, Sandra says, was the all hold or
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what is now the amber light While other inventors had
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experimented with marketed and even patented traffic signals, Morgan was
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one of the first to apply for and acquire a
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US patent for an inexpensive way to produce a traffic signal.
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The patent was granted on November twenty, nineteen twenty three.
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Morgan also had his invention patented in Great Britain and Canada.
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Morgan soon sold his three position traffic light to General
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Electric for forty thousand dollars, which is the equivalent of
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about six hundred and ten thousand today. With that money,
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he purchased two hundred and fifty acres later in Wakeman, Ohio,
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and transformed it into an African American country club, complete
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with a party room and dance hall. And for Gee
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it was a wise move as well by gaining a
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major patent for a traffic signal. They went on to
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dominate the traffic signal business. In nineteen forty three, Morgan
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began developing glaucoma and lost most of his sight as
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a result. The accomplished inventor died in Cleveland, Ohio, on
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July twenty, nineteen sixty three, at the age of eighty seven.
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He died shortly before the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation centennial,
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an event he had been awaiting. At the time of
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his death, Morgan was working on yet another invention, a
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self extinguishing cigarette if the smoker fell asleep, just before
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his death. Morgan was honored by the U. S. Government
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for his traffic signal invention, and he was eventually restored
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to his place in history as a hero of the
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Lake Erie rescue. Garrett eventually did have further success selling
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the hood, which over time became known as the gas mask.
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He sold the mask to fire departments throughout the country
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and won a contract with the U. S. Navy. By
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nineteen seventeen, the year after the Lake Erie cribbed disaster,
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the mask was standard equipment for the U. S. Army
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during World War One. Some reports say that masks used
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by the military were manufactured by the English or French,
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and that by then there were dozens others other types
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of gas mask on the market, but Garrett Morgan's mask
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was the prototype. Sandra Morgan said later, it turned the tide.
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It made business sense. My grandfather was so grateful. We
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used to always make jokes. My name is Morgan, but
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it ain't JP. Half a century later, his invention went
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on display at the opening of the National Museum of
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African American History and Culture, honoring a brilliant inventor who
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risked his life to save eight men and through his inventions,
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continued to save the lives of countless others. In two
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thousand and five, Morgan was inducted into the National Inventor's
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Hall of Fame for both his gas mask and three
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way traffic signal. A century later, Garrett Morgan is considered
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one of the America's greatest, if least known, inventors. Like
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other inventors of the Industrial Age, people like bell Ford
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and Wright Brothers, Morgan's story is one of hard work, ingenuity,
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and fearlessness. However, it was his business acumen that earned
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a comparison to another contemporary. My grandfather was an inventor,
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but he considered himself a businessman first, an entrepreneur, says
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granddaughter Sarah Morgan. He referred to himself as the Black Edison.
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Sources for today's show came from the website Scientificamerica dot com.
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Black Inventor Garrett Morgan saves countless lies with gas mask
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and improved traffic Lights written by Low de Luca February
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of twenty twenty one. From Biography dot com Garrett Morgan
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written in June of twenty twenty one. No author thought
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dot com bio of Garrett Hogan or Morgan rather inventor
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of the gas mask written by Mary Bellis in November
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of twenty nineteen. Invention dot SI dot Edu Diverse Voices
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Inventor Garrett Morgan written by Monica Smith February of twenty
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twenty two. Popular Mechanics dot com. The Untold Story of
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the Man who called himself the Black Edison written by
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Matt Blitz in September of twenty sixteen. And America Comes
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Alive dot com. Garrett Morgan, successful inventor of the traffic
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signal in safety Hood written by Kate Kelly. No date,
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Well it's time to close. Time sure goes quickly. I
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sure hope you enjoyed today's show. I thank you for
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listening and giving me your time today, and I'm your host,
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Joseph Bolt, and I'll be back next week with another
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chapter of Radio Eye history. Until then, happy trails