Morgan, Garrett A (1875–1963)

US inventor who patented the gas mask 1914 and the automatic three-way traffic signal 1923.

Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky. He received only elementary-school education and at the age of 14 he left home to work in Ohio. From 1895 he lived in Cleveland, doing repairs, then opening a tailoring shop 1909, and went on to establish the G A Morgan Hair Refining Company in 1913 as a result of discovering a human hair-straightening process. In 1916 he set up a company to manufacture and sell the safety hood, as he called the gas mask.

During World War I the design of the gas mask was improved and it became part of the standard field equipment of US soldiers.

In 1920 Morgan started his own newspaper, the Cleveland Call, later the Call and Post. He sold the right to the traffic signal to the General Electric Corporation for $40,000. He also invented a friction-drive clutch.

Morgan served as treasurer of the Cleveland Association of Colored Men from 1914 until it merged with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, of which he remained an active member all his life.