Garrett Morgan
Storyboard Text
- ...the Pythagorean Theorem!
- I herby award Garrett Morgan with...
- Garret Morgan was born on March 4, 1877, in Paris, Kentucky to Elizabeth Reed and Sydney Morgan, two former slaves. He was the seventh of eleven children.
- Morgan only completed an elementary school education, finishing up to the sixth grade. After this, he paid for more lessons from private tutors. Later, he became interested in the way in which machines worked, and soon opened his own repair business, which was a great sucess.
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- Throughout his life, Morgan made many important contributions to society. This earned him a grand prize at the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation, as well as a nomination for the Carnegie Medal. He also received a citation from the government for his invention of the traffic signal. On July 27, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio, Garrett Morgan passed away.
- In the early 1900s, streets were beginning to become crowded with a variety of different vehicles, including bikes, horse-drawn wagons, and streetcars. Manually operated traffic signals were proving to be ineffective when dealing with this traffic. After witnessing the collision of an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, Morgan knew he had to do something.
- The main problem with the current traffic signals was a lack of warning about when they were going to turn, as drivers weren't able to react quickly enough when the commands changed. To fix this problem, Morgan designed an automatic signal with three positions- one to stop, one to go, and one "warning" middle position. He was granted the patent for this on November 20, 1923.
- Over time, the "warning" position Morgan created became the yellow light seen today. These traffic signals are now seen all over the world, and save countless numbers of lives each and every day. They help to maintain order in the flow of traffic and increase both safety and efficiency on roads.
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