Garrett Morgan

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. was an American inventor and community leader. He worked on the development of a chemical for hairstraightening. He was the subject of a newspaper expose in Cleveland, Ohio, for a heroic rescue in 1916 of workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50160ft beneath Lake Erie. He performed his rescue using a hood fashioned to protect his eyes from smoke and featuring a series of air tubes that hung near the ground to draw clean air beneath the rising smoke. By using this simple principle of heat, it allowed Morgan to lengthen his ability to endure the inhospitable conditions of a smokefilled room. Morgan is also credited as the first African American in Cleveland to own an automobile.

Morgan was born in Claysville, an AfricanAmerican community outside of Paris, Kentucky, to Sydney Morgan, a son and former slave of Confederate Colonel John H. Morgan , and Eliza Reed, also a former slave who was half Native American and daughter of Rev. Garrett Reed. He had at least one sibling, a brother Frank, who assisted in the 1916 Lake Erie tunnel rescue.

Source: Wikipedia