Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: voc Obam Here. It should go without saying that Black
Speaker 1: Americans have been responsible for countless cultural and technological inventions,
Speaker 1: but our history books haven't always featured them. So today,
Speaker 1: let's talk about a few. In eighteen eighty five, Sarah
Speaker 1: Good became the first black woman to receive a US patent.
Speaker 1: A Good was born into slavery in eighteen fifty, and
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, she moved to Chicago and opened
Speaker 1: a furniture store. It was there that she came up
Speaker 1: with an idea that would bring more urban residents with
Speaker 1: limited space into her shop. She invented a folding cabinet bed.
Speaker 1: By day, the piece of furniture could be used as
Speaker 1: a desk, but at night it could be folded out
Speaker 1: into a bed. A Good received her patent thirty years
Speaker 1: before the Murphy bed, a hideaway bed that folds into
Speaker 1: a wall. A. Next up, let's talk about another ingenious
Speaker 1: everyday device, the protective mailbox. When you drop a letter
Speaker 1: in a public mailbox, you expected to reach its destination
Speaker 1: safely and in relatively good condition. But before eighteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: people using the US mail couldn't make those kind of assumptions.
Speaker 1: Public mailboxes were semi open, which made it easy for
Speaker 1: thieves to steal mail and for elements like rain and
Speaker 1: snow to damaged letters. But Philip P. Downing changed that
Speaker 1: with a mailbox design that featured an outer door and
Speaker 1: an inner safety door. OH. When the outer door was open,
Speaker 1: safety door remained closed so that the mail was safe
Speaker 1: from thieves and inclement weather. OH. When the outer door
Speaker 1: was closed, the safety door would open so that the
Speaker 1: deposited mail would join the other letters in the box.
Speaker 1: This safety device allowed mailboxes to be set up everywhere
Speaker 1: near people's homes. Born into a middle class family in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven, Downing had a long career as a
Speaker 1: clerk with the custom House in Boston. He also save
Speaker 1: patterns for a device to quickly moistened envelopes and one
Speaker 1: for operating street railway switches. On the subject of railways,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the multiplex telegraph. This was a device
Speaker 1: and the time before radios, that made it possible for
Speaker 1: railway workers to communicate among moving trains. This was a
Speaker 1: game changer because, okay, imagine trying to land an airplane
Speaker 1: at a busy airport, air traffic controllers on the ground
Speaker 1: can communicate with pilots to prevent collisions. In eighteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: one Granville T. Woods invented the multiplex telegraph to allow
Speaker 1: train dispatchers to do the same thing. It allowed dispatchers
Speaker 1: and engineers at various stations to communicate with moving trains
Speaker 1: via telegraph. Conductors could also communicate with their counterparts on
Speaker 1: other trains. Prior to eighteen eighty seven, train collisions were
Speaker 1: a huge problem, but Woods device helped make train travel
Speaker 1: much safer. Woods was sued by Thomas Edison, who claimed
Speaker 1: that he was the inventor of the multiplex telegraph, but
Speaker 1: Woods won that lawsuit. Eventually, Edison asked him to work
Speaker 1: at his Edison Electric Light Company, but Woods declined, preferring
Speaker 1: to remain independent and went on to receive other patents
Speaker 1: for his train and communications work. Speaking of Edison, he
Speaker 1: often gets the credit for inventing the light bulb, but
Speaker 1: in reality, dozens of inventors were working to perfect commercial
Speaker 1: lighting at the time. One of those inventors was Lewis Latimer.
Speaker 1: Latimer was hired as an office assistant at a law
Speaker 1: firm that specialized in patents in eighteen sixty eight. A
Speaker 1: while there, he taught himself mechanical drawing and was promoted
Speaker 1: to draftsmen. In his time at the firm, he worked
Speaker 1: with Alexander Graham Bell on the plans for the telephone.
Speaker 1: Latimer then began his foray into the world of light.
Speaker 1: Edison was working on a light bulb model with the
Speaker 1: paper filament, the filament being the thin fiber that the
Speaker 1: electric current heat to produce light in an incandescent bulb.
Speaker 1: In Edison's experiments, the paper would burn down in fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes or so, rendering the bulb unrealistic for practical use.
Speaker 1: It was Latimer who created a light bulb model that
Speaker 1: used a carbon filament, which lasted longer and made light
Speaker 1: bulb production cheaper. Because of Latimer's innovation, more people could
Speaker 1: afford to light their homes. But let's talk about a
Speaker 1: medical inventor. In nineteen thirty eight, Charles Richard Drew went
Speaker 1: to Columbia University to earn a Doctor of Medical Science degree.
Speaker 1: A while there, he became interested in researching the preservation
Speaker 1: of blood. Drew discovered a method of separating red blood
Speaker 1: cells from plasma, and then storing the two components separately.
Speaker 1: This new process allowed blood to be stored for more
Speaker 1: than a week, which was the maximum at that time.
Speaker 1: The ability to store blood, or as Drew called it,
Speaker 1: banking the blood for longer periods of time, meant that
Speaker 1: more people could receive transfusions. Drew documented these findings in
Speaker 1: a paper that led to the first blood bank. After
Speaker 1: completing his studies, Drew began working with the military. A first,
Speaker 1: he supervised blood preservation and delivery in World War Two,
Speaker 1: and then was appointed director of the first American Red
Speaker 1: Cross Blood Bank, a blood bank for the US Army
Speaker 1: and Navy that served as the model for blood banks today. However,
Speaker 1: Drew resigned his position because the armed forces insisted on
Speaker 1: separating blood by race and providing white soldiers with blood
Speaker 1: donated from white people. Drew knew that race made no
Speaker 1: difference in blood composition, and he felt that this unnecessary
Speaker 1: segregation would cost too many lives. Drew returned to private
Speaker 1: life as a surgeon and medical professor at Howard University.
Speaker 1: Our final inventor today is Garrett Morgan. A. While working
Speaker 1: as a handyman at the turn of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: he taught himself how sewing machines worked, so that he
Speaker 1: could open up his own shop, selling new machines and
Speaker 1: repairing broken ones. While trying to find a fluid that
Speaker 1: would polish needles, Morgan happened upon a formula that would
Speaker 1: straighten human hair. His first invention useful, but he would
Speaker 1: go on to save countless lives with his next two inventions.
Speaker 1: Troubled by how many firefighters were killed by smoke on
Speaker 1: the job, Morgan developed what he called the safety hood.
Speaker 1: This hood, which went over the head, featured tubes connected
Speaker 1: to wet sponges that filtered out smoke and provided cleaner
Speaker 1: air to the wearer. This primitive gas mask became a
Speaker 1: sensation in nineteen sixteen when Morgan ran to the scene
Speaker 1: of a tunnel explosion and used his invention to help
Speaker 1: save the lives of trapped workers. Later, in nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: as automobiles were becoming more common, Morgan noticed the collisions
Speaker 1: were all too common on chaotic streets, and so he
Speaker 1: developed an early prototype, the three position traffic signal. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article Top ten Inventions by
Speaker 1: African Americans on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Molly Edmunds.
Speaker 1: The Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks
Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.