Breathing device
- Filed
- 21 September 1912
- Granted
- 24 March 1914
- Assignee
- National Safety Device Company
Safety equipment and traffic control
Garrett Morgan: inventions and patents
Known for Breathing device (safety hood) and a three-way traffic signalNationality Born in Paris, Kentucky, United States4 March 1877 to 27 July 1963
Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky, and worked in Cleveland, where he patented a breathing device in 1914 and a traffic signal in 1923. The National Inventors Hall of Fame says his safety hoods were used in 1916 by rescuers at a gas-filled tunnel after an explosion at the Cleveland Waterworks, and that he sold the traffic signal patent rights to General Electric for 40,000 dollars. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.1,2,3
Patents
Traffic signal
- Filed
- 27 February 1922
- Granted
- 20 November 1923
- Assignee
- Individual
Inventions
- Safety hood, 1914. A breathing device, described by the Hall of Fame as a forerunner of the gas mask, developed after the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire.1
- Three-way traffic signal, 1923. A T-shaped traffic signal that included a caution signal between stop and go, which the Hall of Fame calls the equivalent of today's yellow light.1,3
- Belt fastener for sewing machines. Named by the Hall of Fame as his first invention.1
Recognition
- 1963 Honoured as a pioneering citizen at the Emancipation Centennial Celebration1
- 2005 Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame1
Sources
- National Inventors Hall of Fame, Garrett Morgan (accessed 2026-10-27)
- Google Patents, US1090936A Breathing device (accessed 2026-10-27)
- Google Patents, US1475024A Traffic signal (accessed 2026-10-27)