![]() ![]() Mary would die from the injuries and Elijah’s health suffered for several years until he died in 1929. In 1922, Elijah and Mary were involved in an automobile accident and both suffered severe injuries. When he desired an easier and faster way of watering his lawn, he created and patented the lawn sprinkler. He developed and patented a portable ironing board after his wife expressed a need for an easier way of ironing clothes. In 1920, Elijah established the “Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company.” With his new company, he improved and sold the graphite lubricator as well as other inventions which came to him out of necessity. In 1916 McCoy created the graphite lubricator which allowed new superheater trains and devices to be oiled. Few of us remember this fine engineer and inventor today, but he permanently changed America in two ways. Versions of the cup would soon be used in steam engines, naval vessels, oil-drilling rigs, mining equipment, in factories and construction sites. He made continued improvements to the “lubricating cup.” The patent application described the it as a device which “provides for the continuous flow of oil on the gears and other moving parts of a machine in order to keep it lubricated properly and continuous and thereby do away with the necessity of shutting down the machine periodically.” The device would be adjusted and modified in order to apply it to different types of machinery. He thus sold some percentages of rights to his patent to finance building a workshop. Want to support reporting like this? Consider making a gift to Michigan Radio today.McCoy remained interested in continuing to perfect his invention and to create more. There were a number of others that we’re still discovering in terms of the breakthroughs and the pioneering efforts that they made." "We can talk about Elijah McCoy, but he was hardly singular in what he was doing. So some of those people are lost in history. There’s always the question of bigotry, and prejudice and racism, discrimination African-Americans had during that time. "However, he’s like a number of pioneers who have to overcome a number of obstacles and barriers to take their place in history. "Before his death I think he was highly respected among people who were in the industry," Boyd said. Just nine years before he died, McCoy took more control over his own inventions and founded Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, according to Boyd. "Only later in his life was he able to really take advantage of. ![]() "Manufacturing companies made careers off of Elijah McCoy's innovations," Boyd said. However, there is a lot of controversy on that," Boyd said, noting that there are several competing theories about the origins of the phrase. "Because it was such an interesting development and innovation, many engineers and conductors began to ask, 'Is this a real McCoy?' And so, many people feel that that's the origin of that particular term. So, he's kind of forced to taking something that is kind of an inferior job."īoyd calls McCoy "absolutely prolific," noting that his work went beyond train lubrication, including one patent for a folding ironing board.īut the self-lubricating device for locomotives would turn out to be the most significant. "The Michigan Central Railroad hired him as an oiler and as a fire person. "After going to Scotland as a teenager to become a mechanical engineer, he came back to this country, and was unable to get a job employed in his particular craft," Boyd said. They went to Canada, where McCoy was born, and eventually settled in Ypsilanti, Michigan, according to Herb Boyd, the author of Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination.īoyd says racism limited McCoy’s opportunities as a young professional. McCoy’s parents escaped from slavery in Kentucky on the Underground Railroad. McCoy's creation became a necessity on trains, but it never would have happened without an entirely different kind of railroad. “If you were an oiler crawling over steam engines at the time, you would describe his inventions as life-saving, or arm-saving.” “We describe his inventions as assisting in lubrication,” says Damian Porcari, the director of the patent office. He’s best known for inventing an automatic lubricator that was used on trains. patents, most having to do with the lubrication of steam engines. He lived the rest of his life as a free man. He was, however, able to sell the engine and keep the money, which he used to buy his freedom. Because he was a slave, Bradley was not allowed to get a patent for the engine he developed. McCoy had more than 50 patents to his name. Canadian-American inventor and engineer who was notable for his 57 U.S. Bradley then used his savings to develop and build an engine large enough to run a steam-powered warship. McCoy was born in the mid-1840s, nearly 170 years before the office opened. Patent and Trademark office in Detroit bears the name of Elijah McCoy, a pioneering African-American inventor. ![]()
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