Today’s Doodle celebrates the birthday of Elijah McCoy, a black Canadian-American engineer and inventor who revolutionized the efficiency of trains with his inventions. During his lifetime he held 57 patents, most of which were related to locomotives and railways.
In 1837, McCoy’s parents bravely escaped a life of slavery in Kentucky via the Underground and sought freedom in Canada. Elijah was born in Colchester, Ontario and returned to the United States with his family at a young age. He grew up with a passion for problem solving, engineering and trains. At the age of 15, he decided to continue his education in the field and moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to become an apprentice mechanical engineer.
Upon his return, McCoy settled in Michigan as job opportunities in Canada were very limited. In 1866, Black Americans faced uncontrolled racial discrimination, which made it extremely difficult to find work that matched their level of experience in engineering. He joined the Michigan Central Railroad as a firefighter and lubricant and quickly realized how ineffective it was to have to stop trains every few miles to manually lubricate their engines.
Six years after his role, McCoy tackled this issue by inventing what was commonly known as the “oil-dripping cup.” The cup made the oil flow steadily around the engine without having to stop the train. As a result, McCoy obtained his first patent, “Improvement in Locomotive Lubricants.” Future variants of his invention were later used to revolutionize oil extraction and extraction equipment along with construction and factory tools.
McCoy continued to design new inventions while working as a consultant to engineering firms, including patents for a lawn mower and an ironing board. He eventually founded the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company in 1920, which produced lubricants under his own name.
In 2001, Elijah McCoy was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio and has a special exhibition at the Detroit Historical Museum. McCoy’s innovations and ingenuity kept trains moving and opened the rails for today’s well-oiled machines.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
