American steam engine inventor12/17/2023 ![]() ![]() Want to support reporting like this? Consider making a gift to Michigan Radio today. There were a number of others that we’re still discovering in terms of the breakthroughs and the pioneering efforts that they made." ![]() "We can talk about Elijah McCoy, but he was hardly singular in what he was doing. Pro Robert Fulton history of steamboats with diagrams of steam engines. Then, in 1913, diesel powered locomotives hit. Following that debut, locomotives have been powered by a myriad of fuels, including wood, coal and oil. So some of those people are lost in history. The history of how Robert Fultons name came to be associated with the first steamboat. On February 21, 1804, British mining engineer, inventor and explorer Richard Trevithick debuted the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil. There’s always the question of bigotry, and prejudice and racism, discrimination African-Americans had during that time. "However, he’s like a number of pioneers who have to overcome a number of obstacles and barriers to take their place in history. "Before his death I think he was highly respected among people who were in the industry," Boyd said. Just nine years before he died, McCoy took more control over his own inventions and founded Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, according to Boyd. "Only later in his life was he able to really take advantage of. "Manufacturing companies made careers off of Elijah McCoy's innovations," Boyd said. However, there is a lot of controversy on that," Boyd said, noting that there are several competing theories about the origins of the phrase. "Because it was such an interesting development and innovation, many engineers and conductors began to ask, 'Is this a real McCoy?' And so, many people feel that that's the origin of that particular term. So, he's kind of forced to taking something that is kind of an inferior job."īoyd calls McCoy "absolutely prolific," noting that his work went beyond train lubrication, including one patent for a folding ironing board.īut the self-lubricating device for locomotives would turn out to be the most significant. "The Michigan Central Railroad hired him as an oiler and as a fire person. "After going to Scotland as a teenager to become a mechanical engineer, he came back to this country, and was unable to get a job employed in his particular craft," Boyd said. They went to Canada, where McCoy was born, and eventually settled in Ypsilanti, Michigan, according to Herb Boyd, the author of Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination.īoyd says racism limited McCoy’s opportunities as a young professional. McCoy’s parents escaped from slavery in Kentucky on the Underground Railroad. McCoy's creation became a necessity on trains, but it never would have happened without an entirely different kind of railroad. “If you were an oiler crawling over steam engines at the time, you would describe his inventions as life-saving, or arm-saving.” “We describe his inventions as assisting in lubrication,” says Damian Porcari, the director of the patent office. He’s best known for inventing an automatic lubricator that was used on trains. ![]() McCoy had more than 50 patents to his name. James Watt was an inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements in steam engine technology drove the Industrial Revolution. McCoy was born in the mid-1840s, nearly 170 years before the office opened. Patent and Trademark office in Detroit bears the name of Elijah McCoy, a pioneering African-American inventor. ![]()
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