WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Traffic Lights 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.680 Happy Saturday. When I am picking episodes to run as 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.440 Saturday Classics, I like to keep an eye out for 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.520 things like anniversaries and birthdays, and I stumbled onto one 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.400 that delighted me this time around, which is that the 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.599 first traffic light was installed one hundred and fifty five 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.280 years ago today, on December ninth, eighteen sixty eight. It 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.520 was patterned after signals that were already in U sport trains. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.760 We talked about this in our episode on the Rise 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.640 of Traffic Lights, which originally ran August nineteenth, twenty nineteen. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:34.879 One of the things that we talked about in this 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.279 episode is the effect that traffic lights have had on safety, 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.839 which is one of many factors affecting safety for everyone 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.280 who uses the roads. Motor vehicle deaths in the US 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.640 have continued to be much lower than they were before 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.880 traffic signals were introduced if you factor in how many 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.960 vehicles are on the road. As an update on that, 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.080 since this episode came out, death rates and motor vehicle 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.160 crashes have actually been increasing, and death rates for pedestrians 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.360 have been rising much much faster than that of other 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.919 road users. According to a report from the Governor's Highway 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.600 Safety Association drivers killed more than seventy five hundred pedestrians 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.520 with their vehicles in twenty twenty two. That is the 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:21.480 highest number since nineteen eighty one. Other than that upsetting statistic, 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:28.039 enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:38.000 production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.319 Holly Frye and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. So, Tracy. Traffic 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.479 lights are part of everyday life. Uh huh. I mean 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.600 I grew up in a place that had none that 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.480 now has a blinker light, but still I grew up 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.200 in a place that are where the area we live 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.640 did not have any, and now it has dozens. It 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.720 grew very quickly but pretty common at this point, and 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.560 both pedestrians and drivers tend to count on them, particularly 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.880 in cities. And recently, as I was sitting in my 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.000 car at a stop light late at night, I was 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.799 on my way home from the airport, and the light 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.960 refused to turn, so I eventually had to make a 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.000 right turn instead of the left turn I was trying 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.120 to make, and then you turn so that I could 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.119 get through that intersection without breaking laws. And it got 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.760 me to wondering who invented traffic lights? Also because it 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:28.720 was late at night and my brain works that way 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.239 when I'm Meandre And it turns out that if you 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.680 google that question, you get a whole lot of different answers. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:35.800 So I thought it might be fun to look at 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.800 a few of the moments in traffic light history that 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.520 got us where we are today and talk about some 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.400 of those various contenders to the who did it first question. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.359 But before we get into the traffic lights origins, we're 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.280 going to cover a little bit of what made traffic 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.160 lights and necessity in the first place. That, of course 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.960 was cars, and cars have a whole history all on 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.480 their own, because, like a lot of other inventions, a 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.799 whole lot of different inventions had to happen to get 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.639 to the point where there was a vehicle that could 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.200 actually carry a driver and get somewhere. It wasn't as 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.480 though one person was kind of toiling away with the 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.200 idea and then a car popped out of their workshop 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.840 fully formed. And this is an issue that comes with 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.040 some debate about who should get credit for what, similar 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.200 to the development of the airplane. So we're not here 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.560 to tease out that particular debate today we're going to 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.040 focus on the debate of traffic lights, but it is 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.880 worth noting some of the inventions along the way. So 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.400 Nikola Joseph Kuno, for example, built a steam powered tractor 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:39.160 for the French military in seventeen sixty nine and that 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.000 could reach the blistering speed of about two point five 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.840 miles per hour. And an electric carriage was being worked 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.640 on in Scotland by a man named Robert Anderson as 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.040 really as the eighteen thirties. But it's Carl Friedrich Benz 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.920 who usually gets the credit for inventing the first vehicle 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.320 that someone might actually call a car or automobile in 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.520 terms of how we think of it today. In the 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:02.920 mid eighteen eighties, he came up with a design for 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.280 a gasoline vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. This 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.040 car had three wheels and he patented it in his 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.080 home country of Germany. In eighteen seventy six, George Baldwin Selden, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.279 a US inventor, started designing a vehicle with an internal 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.680 combustion engine. Also, he never built one of his cars, 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.960 which was designed with four wheels, but he did get 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.440 a patent for it, and then he licensed that patent 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.960 to other manufacturers. In eighteen eighty six, Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.479 improved on previous efforts with his auto called a Constant Diimler, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.600 which featured four wheels and a four stroke internal combustion engine. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.880 In eighteen ninety three, brothers Charles and Edgar Durier became 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.719 the first US auto manufacturers with their car, which had 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.200 a four horse power, two stroke motor. Things really got 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.840 moving at the dawn of the twentieth century. In nineteen 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.400 oh one, Diimler's company produced a Mercedes that jumped the 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.600 industry forward. It could go as fast as fifty three 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.000 miles per hour, and it had a thirty five horsepower engine. 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.080 Not everyone was keeping pace with the level of engineering 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.120 that was coming out of Germany, but the Mercedes was 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.040 not something everyone could afford or have access to. About 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.640 the same time, Ransom E. Olds introduced a much cheaper 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.320 vehicle in the United States that was far less powerful. 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.320 It only had three horse power and it was steered 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.320 with a tiller. Yeah. I like to think of these 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:29.240 things happening concurrently, like this goes fifty three miles per hour. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.760 It's super fast and pretty amazing. I got a tiller, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.479 but was it worked. In the United States, the rise 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.240 of the automobile's popularity is credited, of course, to Henry Ford. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.680 It was Ford who managed to keep up with the 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.880 latest innovation and make cars more accessible to a wider 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.560 range of incomes. For example, that tiller situation was very 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.840 affordable but not really technologically advanced, and Ford kind of 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.119 married these two concepts. By nineteen oh six, Ford Motor 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.760 Company was turning out one hundred cars a day from 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.320 its production line. The fifteen horsepower Ford Model N, which 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.760 was in production from nineteen oh six to nineteen oh seven, 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.880 sold for six hundred dollars, and its success was what 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.760 led to the development of the Model T, which debuted 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.640 in its earliest incarnation in October of nineteen oh eight 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.960 with a twenty horsepower engine, and it cost eight hundred 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.479 twenty five dollars. From that point, Ford continued to refine 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.720 the Model T for the next nineteen years, with subsequent 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.200 editions of the car coming in at lower and lower 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.760 price points, falling all the way down to less than 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.240 three hundred dollars in nineteen twenty seven. So, naturally, with 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.839 more and more people able to afford motor cars. Roads 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.480 got busier and busier, and that led to the rather 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.560 predictable problems of traffic and accidents. It's estimated that by 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.760 nineteen thirteen, there were two million drivers in the US 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.800 and one point two million vehicles on the road. At 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.640 this point, the rules of the road were pretty nebulous 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.880 in more rural areas, while roads were less established. There 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.719 were also not all that many drivers, but in cities, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:03.560 population dence also meant traffic density. Also, in nineteen thirteen, 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.560 New York City was said to have gotten to the 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.240 point where it had two traffic jams each day at 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.400 peak hours. Chicago was experiencing slow down of its city 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.200 trolley service because the main thoroughfares became jammed, making it 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.200 difficult to maintain a regular schedule. By nineteen sixteen, San 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.520 Francisco had twenty six thousand cars on the streets, as 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.240 well as ten thousand horse buggies. So there's also that 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.040 multiple different kinds of vehicles taking up the road problem, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.960 and there was often talk in major cities that traffic 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.239 made automobiles slower than horse carts. Some people abandoned cars 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.240 pretty early on for this very reason. They thought it 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.680 was not in fact, an advancement. Press around the globe 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.520 featured stories debating the merits of cars and whether they 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.800 really represented a step forward or backward. And while early 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.240 cars were developed in Europe, especially France and Germany, the 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.320 costs remained high enough there that the increase in motor 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.880 traffic didn't pace as quickly as it did in the 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.400 United States. Europe didn't really start to have traffic issues 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.200 until the mid nineteen twenties. So you have probably seen 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.120 photographs of city streets from this era where there are 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.520 street cars, pedestrians, horse drawn carriages, and cars all on 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.760 the road at the same time. It almost always looks 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.800 pretty chaotic. That is because it was. Even though larger 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.920 cities sometimes stationed police at busy intersections to try to 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.560 manage things, that was not a super effective way to 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.880 do it, since there also wasn't always a really clear 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.720 set of rules or signals that all of those motorists, pedestrians, etc. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.040 Would all recognize, and it tended to be a lot 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.000 of honking cars and whistleblowing and everyone still kind of 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.600 doing what they wanted and hopefully getting out of the way. 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.760 The National Safety Council started tracking automobile related deaths in 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.720 nineteen thirteen, and that year four two hundred people died. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.120 In nineteen thirteen, an accident in Cleveland kind of brought 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.520 this problem into a sharp focus. There was a March 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.200 dinner party that had ended in George Harbaugh, who was 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.360 an oil man, was driving home and when he turned 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.840 onto the city's busy Euclid Avenue, his car was hit 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.840 by a street car. And there were no fatalities in 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.080 this particular case, although that was considered rather miraculous, and 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.040 it did make the papers and kind of started a 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.440 bigger discussion about it. Even before traffic accidents got to 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.200 be a big issue, enterprising problem solvers were on the case. 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.920 And depending on how you define a traffic light, there 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.880 are a few contenders for the title of first. We'll 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:29.839 talk about all those different firsts after we take a 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:41.400 quick sponsor break. So before the break we mentioned lots 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.080 of different efforts at controlling traffic, and that means first 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.440 we're going to talk about a man named John Peak Knight. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.640 He was born in Nottingham, England, in eighteen twenty six, 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.040 and from the time he was just a child he 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.160 really loved trains. He left school at the age of 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.720 twelve so that he could work at the Midland Railway Company. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.240 Although that was a job that was in the mail room, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.840 it wasn't working directly with trains, but just the same 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.000 it started his railway career and he continued to work 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.680 for railway companies as he moved up the industry ladder. 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:10.640 He's sort of that classic like I started in the 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.200 mailroom and eventually I started running things. And he was 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:18.040 really good in terms of having an eye for solving problems. 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.800 For example, the BBC, in an article about him, credited 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.000 him as the inventor of emergency brake cords in trains. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.800 In eighteen sixty five, when he was in his late thirties, 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.600 Night had an idea he'd already been designing signaling systems 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.640 for trains, and couldn't that same system be adapted for 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.080 use on the roads. Again in eighteen sixty five, you'll 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.440 recall from the top of the show that while there 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.360 were some attempts at motorized vehicles that had been made 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.719 before this time, there really weren't cars as we think 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.600 of them in existence, but there were more and more 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.160 horse drawn carriages. They were turning into a traffic problem, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.439 and more importantly, a safety issue for pedestrians, so Knight 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.040 suggested to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police that he could 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.920 adapt the semaphore system used for trains to help with 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.800 managing road traffic. So his design featured arms that were 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.560 held in specific positions to signal whether it was safe 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.720 to pass, and for nighttime travelers this system would switch 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.600 over to using red and green lights. Those were colors 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.080 which were adapted from railway usage, and the railways had 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.439 adapted those from maritime signals. Three years after having this idea, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.040 Night's design was installed on December ninth, eighteen sixty eight 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:32.000 near London's Westminster Bridge and the intersection of Great George 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.640 Street and Bridge Street. A police officer had to operate 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.960 the signals, and to educate the public, flyers were posted 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.120 that explained how these lights worked. They showed images of 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.600 the semaphore arms lowered at an angle which meant you 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.640 could proceed but with caution, and with the arms raised 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.640 so that they were parallel with the ground and that 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.840 meant stop. And these flyers also explained that the green 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.720 and red lights would be used at night. The copy 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.560 on the flyer's read police notice street crossing signals. Bridge 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.920 Street Palace Yard. By the signal caution, all persons in 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.960 charge of vehicles and horses are warned to pass over 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.120 the crossing with care and due regard to the safety 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.360 of foot passengers. The signal stop will only be displayed 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.120 when it is necessary that vehicles and horses shall be 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.560 actually stopped on each side of the crossing to allow 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.360 the passage of persons on foot. Notice being this given 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.200 to all persons in charge of vehicles and horses to 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.680 stop clear of the crossing. Richard Maine, Commissioner of the 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:34.000 London Metropolitan Police and once installed, this traffic light had 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.199 a pretty immediate positive effect. People understood what it was about, 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.400 they had been educated, traffic was kind of under control, 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:44.200 but unfortunately it was a short lived project. In early 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.480 eighteen sixty nine, so just around a month after it 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.280 had been installed, during an evening shift, one of the 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.920 gas lamps that was used for the light based night 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.600 signaling exploded due to a faulty gas mean and the 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.280 policeman that was on duty was very badly burned and 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.200 night system was immediately abandoned. In the United States, early 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.760 efforts were made and a number of cities to try 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.800 to control traffic before traffic signals came along, and they 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.800 had variable success. There was no one way to do it, 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.320 so everybody was trying their own thing. Some cities started 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.880 using sign systems that read things along the lines of 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.600 stop or proceed. These didn't light up, so they weren't 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.320 as much help at night, which was unfortunately when they 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.800 were needed the most. In nineteen twelve, a Salt Lake City, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.400 Utah policeman named Lester Wire created his own traffic light. 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:36.880 Wyre was born on September third, eighteen eighty seven in 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.440 Salt Lake, and as a young man, he enrolled at 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.040 the University of Utah, but the financial strain of paying 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.240 for school ended his education early. He left college in 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:48.600 nineteen ten, and at that point he took a job 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.640 on the city's police force. In nineteen twelve, the Salt 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.880 Lake City PD formed a new division to deal with traffic, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.680 and Wire was put in charge of that division. He 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.880 had to figure out a way to make order out 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:03.240 of the growing problem of having trolley's, pedestrian buggies, and 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:07.439 cars all traveling the same roadways. At first, he wrote 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.680 regulations and rules to manage the traffic. Those were Salt 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.040 Lake City's first traffic laws, and he positioned a police 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.199 officer at the city's busiest intersection to direct the traffic. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.120 But he realized pretty quickly that while it did help 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:23.360 to have an officer directing traffic, this approach did not 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.080 seem terribly efficient, and it was actually a pretty hard 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.040 job for the officers involved. They would have to keep 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:31.960 that position manned in all kinds of weather, and shifts 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.720 were often really, really long, and there was also just 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.880 the inherent danger of standing in traffic trying to enforce 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.080 entirely new regulations. These concerns led Wire to start working 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.000 on his traffic light. His light is often described as 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.320 looking like a birdhouse, and that's apt, although in terms 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.800 of its size it's closer to a little fort area 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.440 in a cat condo. It had two round holes on 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.840 each of its four faces and was mounted on a 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.760 ten foot pole. It had red and green lights thanks 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.280 to bulbs that Lester Wire dipped into paint. This was 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.720 attached to overhead trolley wires and was manually operated by 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.600 a police officer using switches, So although it still had 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.440 to have a person operating it in this roadside booth, 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.120 it remained an improvement over standing in the middle of 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.080 the street to direct the traffic. Wire's invention inspired additional 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.080 innovation and it continued to impact Salt Lake City as 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.560 a front runner in traffic control. In nineteen seventeen, Salt 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.000 Lake City became the first city in the United States 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.480 with an interconnected traffic light system, which was automated by 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.160 the mid nineteen twenties. Wire did not get rich off 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.080 of this. He didn't patent his system. He continued working 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.800 on the police force and eventually became a detective, which 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.240 is what he did until he retired. Uh Cleveland, though, 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.920 often gets the claim to fame for the first electric light, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.480 and that was thanks to engineer James Hodge. Hodge's design 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.440 included the words stop and go on light up signs 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.160 that sat on the four corners of an intersection, and 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.560 he had not yet received a patent on his traffic 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.080 light when he installed it, but it went up on 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.920 August fifth, nineteen fourteen, at the intersection of Euclid Avenue 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.400 and one hundred and fifth Street. You'll recall that story 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:10.560 about the person in the bad accident took place on 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.040 Euclid Avenue, so that was part of why it was 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.120 considered a good candidate for something like this. Unlike today's lights, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.120 hodges invention wasn't on a timer or automated in any 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.680 way to change, with an inductive loop embedded in the road, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.160 His light also had a human operator. A policeman was 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.040 stationed in a booth on the side of the intersection. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.640 He manually changed the lights from red to green with 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.040 a switch. The system was designed to prevent any accidental 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.280 conflicts in the signals, which some other systems had encountered, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.920 which is also sometimes a problem on trains, which was 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.960 one of the earlier inspirations for these ideas. Yeah, this 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.360 one like automatically you would have to cut off a 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.080 signal from one side to have the other one lit, 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.000 so that it fixed that little problem. Additionally, the Cleveland 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.680 system had a function that could trigger all of the 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.960 light to go red at once. It was basically like 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.520 one master switch that the policeman on duty could flip 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.080 and that would allow emergency vehicles to pass without obstruction, 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.520 which is kind of a cool design. Additional safety elements 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.240 were included in the controller's booth. It actually had a telephone, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.680 and it had two telegraph lines directly to the police 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.359 and the fire department. Hodge applied for a patent for 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.000 his design the municipal traffic control system and received that 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.000 patent in nineteen eighteen. But before that patent was issued, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.119 the first automated system had been installed in San Francisco. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.000 And there are more innovators to talk about in the 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.760 traffic lights origin story. But before we get to all those, 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:40.760 we're going to hear from one of the sponsors that 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:51.960 keep stuff you missed in history class going. So while 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.480 Hodge was awaiting his patent, another innovation was also developing 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.399 in nineteen seventeen, this time in Detroit, Michigan. William Potts 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.160 was a Detroit policeman born in eighteen eighty three who 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.359 saw the need for additional information for motorists in this 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.960 whole traffic light plan. He thought maybe they should warn 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.960 them about an impending red light. So it was Potts 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.680 who added the yellow light to the traffic light equation 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.959 that was first put into use in nineteen twenty. He 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:22.520 also innovated by developing the first four direction light. Garrett 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:24.639 Morgan was another man who saw the need for a 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.320 transitional warning in between driving and stopping. Morgan was born 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.520 on March fourth, eighteen seventy seven in Paris, Kentucky. He 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.000 was the son of a formerly enslaved man as his 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.760 father Sidney Morgan, and his mother was Elizabeth Reid, who 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.360 was of Native American and African descent, and Morgan left 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.159 school to work full time in his early teens. He 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.920 was incredibly clever when it came to figuring out how 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.600 machines worked and just being able to see a problem 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.840 and solve it. And actually he was also really interested 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.360 in continuing his education because when he started to earn 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:57.919 money from his first job, which was a handyman, he 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.000 was working for a fairly wealthy employer. He used that 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.520 money to hire a tutor so he could continue to 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.159 get educated. He worked in the sewing machine industry, repairing 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.399 and refining machine design, developed a chemical relaxer for hair, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.959 and also created an early gas mask. In nineteen twenty three, 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.480 thanks once again to his ingenuity, he became part of 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.520 the history of traffic lights. Morgan's decision to work on 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.920 the traffic problem allegedly came from having witnessed an accident 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.800 in an intersection, and he was also a motorist. He 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.280 was the first black man in Cleveland, where he was 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.879 living at the time. To own a car, and he 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.560 saw that cars that suddenly saw a stop signal weren't 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.560 always able to break in a timely manner before they 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.960 got into the middle of the intersection, so he was like, 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.800 we should tell them the red lights coming. So Morgan's 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.400 design was a T shape with arms that transitioned from 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.400 straight up to down at an angle, with positions for 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.639 the arms that designated different messages. Morgan was savvy in 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.399 business and patented his invention not only in the US, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.680 but also in Canada and Britain, and then sold the 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.639 pat to General Electric for forty thousand dollars. Morgan has 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.919 a pretty fantastic life story, so he might get an 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.080 episode all his own at some point. Yeah, there's a 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.760 whole story about him, unrelated to any of this traffic business, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.800 really doing some heroic things and never getting credit because 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.600 he was a black man until much later in the game. 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.440 He also, just like I said, was mind blowingly smart, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.040 which always fascinates me. Automatic timers developed in World War 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.520 One helped move traffic light technology forward once the war 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.040 was over, and while some efforts had been made in 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.640 automatic lights that required no policeman to manually flip switches, 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.399 in the nineteen twenties, the technology rapidly became the rule 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.160 rather than the exception. There were almost one hundred automatic 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.479 lights in New York by nineteen twenty six, and that 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.120 freed up literally thousands of police personnel that had been 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:51.240 standing in intersections to work on other vital rules. I 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:53.880 think I saw a statistic that of like three thousand 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:57.520 officers who routinely were positioned at traffic intersections, they were 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.720 able to drop that back to five hundred that routinely 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.639 kept doing it. By nineteen thirty, most US cities and 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.879 towns had installed some sort of stop light system, and 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.679 to some degree, they became emblems of progress and modernity, 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.280 while towns without them came to be regarded with a 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.040 measure of disdain. I would say that's still the case 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:18.000 for a lot of folks who grew up in places 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.600 that don't have them just because they're too small. Yep. 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.080 The pejorative use of the phrase one horse town came 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.200 to suggest the insignificant place, and that shifted over time 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.840 to the one stoplight town, although both continue to be used. 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.240 I feel like I hear one horse town more often, 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:39.399 just personally, I use on one stoplight town more often, 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.680 Possibly because I grew up in one and was like, ugh, 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.440 which is terrible. Don't talk that way about anybody's town. 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:47.480