Granville Woods
Granville Woods
Granville Woods
Granville Woods
Granville Woods
Granville Woods
1887
1899
1902
Ethnicity:
Granville Woods father was an African-American, while his mother was part Native American.
Granville Woods was born on April 23, 1856, in Columbus, Ohio, the United States, into a humble African-American household. His parents were Martha J. Brown and Cyrus Woods. His father was a sawyer and his mother washed clothes for a living. He had a brother named, Lyates.
Woods received little schooling as a young man. Living in a time of intense racial discrimination, he was forced to leave school early and began working in a machine shop at the age of ten. Woods became an apprentice to a machinist. He learned blacksmithing and how to invent and repair machines.
Naturally curious and intrigued by the electricity which powered the machinery, Woods paid careful attention to all aspects of the machine shop and studied other workers as they attended various pieces of equipment and tasks. Using his earnings, Woods actually paid his coworkers to sit down with him and explain various electrical concepts to him.
Woods’s study and working knowledge of mechanics and electricity enabled him in 1876 to qualify to take courses in mechanical and electrical engineering at an eastern college. Working during the day in a New York City machine shop, Woods attended classes at night for two years. He left school in 1878.
In 1872, at the age of sixteen, Woods left Ohio and, in what can be best described as his travel-and-study period, worked various jobs around the country, augmenting the practical knowledge gained from those positions with readings at night. His first stop was at the Iron Mountain Railroad in Missouri, where he worked as a fireman and, later, an engineer. His interest in electricity and its application to railroads began there. In 1874, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, to work in a rolling mill.
Woods’s study and working knowledge of mechanics and electricity enabled him in 1876 to qualify to take courses in mechanical and electrical engineering at an eastern college. Working during the day in a New York City machine shop, Woods attended classes at night for two years. He left school in 1878 and signed on as an engineer aboard a British steamer, the Ironsides, embarking on a two-year tour that took him to nearly every continent in the world. In 1880 he returned to the United States to work as a steam locomotive engineer for the Danville and Southern Railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio, a position he held for four years.
Unfortunately, despite his high aptitude and valuable education and expertise, Woods was denied opportunities and promotions because of the color of his skin. Unhappy with his inability to obtain higher positions, Woods moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he established his own machine shop in 1880. Out of frustration and a desire to promote his abilities, Woods, along with his brother Lyates, formed the Woods Railway Telegraph Company. By late 1882 and 1883 Woods was once again at work on new inventions. The first patent he received, in 1884, was for an improved type of steam boiler, and he also registered patents on a new telephone signal transmitter and an ingenious process combining features of a telephone and a telegraph machine that he called telegraphony.
Rights to that invention were later acquired by Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company. Despite the flow of creative ideas he was experiencing, Woods lacked even the $15 fee necessary to file patents on these inventions. In cases where he did succeed, it was because Cincinnati investors and attorneys, who were becoming aware of his talents and alert to the possibility of a big payoff, fronted him the money.
Woods forged ahead, and by 1885 he had fleshed out his ideas for a true breakthrough invention called the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph. The system used induction to transmit telegraph messages from moving trains to wires running beside the tracks, thus enabling railroad personnel to monitor the locations of trains in the system - the previous impossibility of which had been the cause of numerous collisions.
In 1887, Woods developed his most important invention to date - a device he called Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph. A variation of the "induction telegraph," it allowed for messages to be sent from moving trains and railway stations. By allowing dispatchers to know the location of each train, it provided for greater safety and a decrease in railway accidents.
The device allowed men to communicate by voice over telegraph wires, ultimately helping to speed up important communications and, subsequently, preventing crucial errors such as train accidents. Woods defeated Edison's lawsuit that challenged his patent and turned down Edison's offer to make him a partner. Thereafter, Woods was often known as "Black Edison."
After receiving the patent for the multiplex telegraph, Woods reorganized his Cincinnati company as the Woods Electric Co. In 1890, he moved his own research operations to New York City, where he was joined by a brother, Lyates Woods, who also had several inventions of his own. In 1892, Woods used his knowledge of electrical systems in creating a method of supplying electricity to a train without any exposed wires or secondary batteries. Approximately every 12 feet, electricity would be passed to the train as it passed over an iron block.
He first demonstrated the device as an amusement apparatus at the Coney Island amusement park and while it amused patrons, it would be a novel approach towards making safer travel for trains. In fact, many of Woods's inventions attempted to increase efficiency and safety for railroad travel. Woods developed the concept of a third rail which would allow a train to receive more electricity while also encountering less friction. This concept is still used on subway train platforms in major cities in the United States.
In 1900, he successfully filed a patent for an egg incubator that provided a constant temperature for the hatching of chicks. By removing the need for the mother hen to provide warmth to the eggs, it decreased the incubation period, in turn profiting the poultry industry. Woods's next most important invention was the power pick-up device in 1901, which is the basis of the so-called "third rail" currently used by electric-powered transit systems. From 1902 to 1905, he received patents for an improved air-brake system.
By the time of his death, on January 30, 1910, in New York City, Woods had invented 15 appliances for electric railways. received nearly 60 patents, many of which were assigned to the major manufacturers of electrical equipment that are a part of today's daily life.
Over the course of his lifetime, Granville Woods would obtain more than 50 patents for inventions including an automatic brake and an egg incubator and for improvements to other inventions such as safety circuits, telegraphs, telephones, and phonographs. When he died on January 30, 1910, in New York City he had become an admired and well-respected inventor, having sold a number of his devices to such giants as Westinghouse, General Electric, and American Engineering. To the world, he was known as the Black Thomas Edison, although the numerous inventions and improvements to existing technology that he brought to the world surely are beyond compare.
A school in Brooklyn was named after him in the 1970s. The same year, M.A. Harris, a historian raised funds to get a headstone constructed for his grave. The Baltimore City Community College in Maryland has a scholarship program named after him. It is a full scholarship that covers the cost of tuition, other fees, and books for selected students. Thanks to David Head’s book promotion celebrating the inventor’s life and his works, New York city-issued metro cards in 2004 commemorating Granville Woods.
Granville Woods dressed sharp, spoke elegantly, and told people he was born in Australia. The latter was a fabrication in the hope of distancing himself from slavery in America and thus get the respect and equal opportunities he deserved.
Physical Characteristics: Early in his career during the summer of 1881, Woods contracted smallpox, which was in its last years as a major health threat in the United States. The often fatal illness sidelined Woods for nearly a year and left him with chronic kidney and liver disease that might have played a role in his early death.
Granville Woods got married to Ada Woods in 1890 but only a year later, his wife filed for divorce due to adultery.
Lyates and Granville worked on their inventions together.
Thomas Edison sued Granville Woods claiming that he was the first inventor of the multiplex telegraph. Granville Woods eventually won, but Edison didn’t give up easily when he wanted something.
Trying to win Granville Woods over, and his inventions, Edison offered Granville Woods a prominent position in the engineering department of Edison Electric Light Company in New York. Granville Woods, preferring his independence, declined.
