# Garrett Morgan

*The inventor whose safety devices changed daily life and industrial survival*

> Black's Encyclopedia — the sourced record of Black American life.
> Portal: Science & Invention · Status: In review · Revised: July 22, 2026 · Revisions: 1
> Canonical: https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/garrett-morgan-9091

## Questions this record answers

- Did a Black man invent the traffic signal?
- What did Garrett Morgan invent?
- Did Garrett Morgan also invent a gas mask?

## Summary

Garrett Morgan built practical inventions that saved lives, including an improved traffic signal and a safety hood that became the basis for his gas mask patent work.

## The archive's standing

Morgan stands among the essential Black inventors of the industrial age. His genius was not abstract novelty but usable protection: devices for crowds, workers, and emergency survival. The archive holds him as a maker whose ordinary-looking inventions changed how modern life moved and breathed.

## What he built

Morgan developed a three-position traffic signal that added a pause between stop and go, helping reduce collisions at busy intersections.

## The safety hood

He also patented a breathing device that protected users from smoke and fumes and was demonstrated in rescue settings, making him one of the most important figures in the history of industrial safety.

## Why his work was obscured

Black inventors were routinely minimized in the public record even when patents survived. Morgan's name endured, but the scale of his contribution was often flattened into a single anecdote about the traffic signal.

## The archive's reading

Morgan's record is a lesson in Black authorship under modernity: he did not merely adapt to industrial danger, he engineered responses to it. His inventions belong in the daily life of the twentieth century, not at its margins.

## Sources

1. U.S. Patent No. 1,475,024, Garrett A. Morgan, "Traffic Signal," filed 1922, issued Nov. 20, 1923.
2. U.S. Patent No. 1,113,675, Garrett A. Morgan, "Breathing Device," filed 1914, issued Oct. 13, 1914.
3. Daryl Michael Scott, "Garrett A. Morgan: Black Inventor," in The Journal of Negro History, vol. 77, no. 1, 1992.

## Related records

- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/traffic-light
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/gas-mask
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/home-security-system
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/granville-t-woods
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/black-inventors

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Cite as: Black's Encyclopedia, "Garrett Morgan," revised July 22, 2026. https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/garrett-morgan-9091

Text under the Black's Record License: cite the record, keep attribution attached, cite the revision date.