Ahead of his time

daughter, Sandra Morgan, says he went in search of opportunity and partly to escape the Jim Crow laws that separated whites from Blacks in the South.

Just as with Morgan, every Black Southerner who abandoned home to go north took a story with them. Some stories became legendary. Many Delta blues musicians like Muddy Waters saw their best opportunity for fame in the North. Waters, whose real name was McKinley Morganfeld, traveled to Chicago from Mississippi in 1943 and developed an electric blues sound that was a major infuence on rock ’n’ roll. Waters, in particular, infuenced the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and others in England when he toured Great Britain in the latter 1950s.

Garrett Morgan was pursuing something diferent than fame. He wanted to fnd his place in the business world, and even when he lef home as an adolescent he had in mind setting up his own business. Tis seemed a tall order for a youth from Claysville, where the segregated school ofered an education only through sixth grade. Morgan had relatives in southern Ohio who might have helped him, but following his two years in Cincinnati, he realized southern Ohio was not for him. Perhaps he’d heard more favorable stories about Cleveland.

Cleveland was earning its reputation as a major industrial city, with smokestacks belching the gray clouds of progress along the Lake

Erie shore. Morgan arrived with his hopes stoked — and no more than a dime in his pocket. He spent his frst three nights sleeping in the railroad car he had arrived in. Ten he found a place to stay and a job in Cleveland’s booming textile works.

Morgan was hired to sweep the foors of Root & McBride, a textile factory where fabric “piece goods” were assembled and fnished by a largely female workforce that used the sewing machines. Tis wasn’t the business opportunity Morgan had wished for, but it gave him a foothold while making acquaintances, earning a wage, and keeping his eyes open for the opportunity to rise. His father, Sydney Morgan, had worked all his life for the railroad but advised his sons to learn to work with their minds not their hands. Morgan kept his father’s advice close.

His job was important. One spark from a machine could have led to a fre if the spark caught on the loose threads, fragments of fabric, and cotton dust that rolled about the factory foor. Everyone would hear about the tragic fre in 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in Greenwich Village in New York City. Te fre killed 146 garment workers, 123 of them women, because the workers could not escape the building. Teir employer had locked the doors to prevent them from taking unauthorized breaks.

As Morgan chased the dust across the foor, he noticed the sewing machines were constantly breaking down. Teir leather drive belts broke apart at their joining seams and the belts few of the machines. Morgan began thinking through this problem. Ten he came up with a solution, his frst in a long line of many.

His idea was to cut belts from rubber instead of leather. He also wanted each belt cut as one continuous piece to eliminate the need for seams. Further, he advised the cutting of these belts in a fgure-eight pattern, which he believed would keep the belts more reliably on the sewing machines. Root & McBride rewarded Morgan with $150 and a promotion. His new job was as caretaker of the machines. He abandoned his broom and began to learn the mechanics of the sewing machines in his care.

Ten a critical intersection in his work life appeared. He had met Mary Hacek, a seamstress from Eastern Europe, and they married in 1908. Sandra Morgan said this mixed-race marriage resulted in an ultimatum delivered by the factory to her grandfather: He was ordered to abandon Hacek or quit his job. He quit the job. He had saved the money he needed to open his own sewing machine repair shop.

In two more years, he opened a tailor’s shop, employing 32 people. He was on his way to realizing his dream of becoming a businessman. But one thing hadn’t changed: Te sewing machines continued to cause problems. Te needles on the machines moved at such high speed that the resulting friction scorched certain fabrics. Once more, Morgan set about fnding a solution.

He searched for something to apply to the needles, a coating capable of reducing the friction. He worked on formulas at home in the evenings, and one night in 1911, called by his wife to dinner, he stopped work and wiped his hands on a fuzzy cloth. Te experiments could wait until afer their meal.

When Morgan returned to his work following dinner, he noticed the fuzz on the cloth, formerly curly, had turned straight.