---
title: "The Man Behind the Modern Stoplight Was a Prolific Black Inventor"
description: "Garrett Morgan came up with the idea for a warning position, which became today’s caution light."
date: "2021-02-21"
modified: "2021-02-21"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin V. Shaw"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/kristin-shaw"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/39362/the-man-behind-the-modern-stoplight-was-a-prolific-black-inventor"
categories:
  - "Culture"
  - "News"
  - "People"
---

# The Man Behind the Modern Stoplight Was a Prolific Black Inventor

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2021/02/Garrett-HERO.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Even before cars took to the roads in the late 1800s, [traffic and congestion](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/23882/uber-will-spend-10-million-to-reduce-traffic-congestion>) became a hazard. [Buggies and horses](<https://www.thedrive.com/article/548/what-its-like-to-wagon-west-on-the-oregon-trail-today>) could easily collide at an intersection, and traffic policemen were putting their lives in danger at those hazardous junctures. The first manually-operated traffic signal was put into position in 1868 in [London](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/36943/the-most-luxurious-london-taxi-with-loads-of-tech-and-ferrari-paint-starts-at-155000>), and in 1923 Black inventor Garrett Morgan engineered a railroad-like semaphore traffic signal that bridged the perilous gap between “Go” and “Stop”.

The first traffic signal before Morgan's was a revolving lantern that required human activation, typically by a police officer. The gas-lit, two-color signal was first seen near Parliament Square in 1868 and had an auspicious beginning: it exploded a month in, injuring the policeman operating the lantern. The other challenge this two-choice system presented was a sudden shift to stop with no slowdown notice, and too many vehicles were blowing the stop.

![message-editor%2F1613895486566-garrett2ndgraf.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content-b/message-editor/1613895486566-garrett2ndgraf.jpg>)
**YouTube**

Morgan, the first Black man in Cleveland to own a car, noticed the problems inherent with early traffic signals. He created a T-shaped pole with a stop, go, and all-directional stop position, which halted all traffic for pedestrians. It caught the eye of [General Electric Corporation](<https://www.twz.com/34568/f-15ex-fighters-to-get-general-electric-engines-under-urgent-purchase-by-air-force>), which paid Morgan $40,000 to own the rights to his invention, a huge sum back then that would equate to more than half a million dollars today.

Born in Paris, Kentucky, Morgan was the biological grandson of a Confederate soldier who had impregnated an enslaved woman. Morgan only had an elementary school education when he started his career as a sewing machine mechanic and moved to Ohio as a teenager. There, he started his own business, finding success with a patent he filed for an improved sewing machine.

The inventor filed several other patents and designed and built a gas mask prototype that was used by firefighters and miners after 1914. Morgan even hired a white actor to pretend to be the inventor to avoid racial discrimination in the South and acted as his assistant, demonstrating the gas mask in fires. Immediately after a tunnel explosion under Lake Erie, Morgan and his brother donned their gas masks and went to help with the rescue mission. Morgan earned some publicity for the device; unfortunately, some of it was negative recognition as some refused to buy from a Black man. It was many years before he received proper accolades for his role in the Lake Erie rescue.

![message-editor%2F1613894846363-garrett3rdgraf.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content-b/message-editor/1613894846363-garrett3rdgraf.jpg>)
**YouTube**

Not long before he died in 1963, the U.S. Government awarded him a citation for his traffic signal invention. Today, the prototype of Morgan’s traffic signal is on display at the [Smithsonian](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/22899/amazon-prime-air-drone-inducted-to-smithsonian-national-air-and-space-museum>)’s American History Museum and the gas mask is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The next time you see someone running a red light and you're safely still stopped, send up a little thank you to Garrett Morgan.

*Got a tip? Send the writer a note: kristin.shaw@thedrive.com*

## Author
Kristin Shaw is the former Weekend Editor for The Drive and a current freelancer in both the automotive and aviation worlds. She’s a big fan of anything car-related and calls on her technology background on the corporate side to explain engineering and high-tech concepts. Now living in her sixth state (New Jersey, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, and now Texas), she is thrilled that working from home is now mainstream.

### Author social links  
[Facebook](<https://facebook.com/DriveModeShow>)  
[Instagram](<https://instagram.com/KristinVShaw>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/KristinVShaw>)