Elijah McCoy (1844 - 1929)
McCoy's patent for his steam engine lubricator
May 2nd 1844: Elijah McCoy born
On this day in 1844, the inventor Elijah McCoy was born in Ontario, Canada. McCoy’s parents were fugitive slaves from Kentucky who made their escape via the Underground Railroad. When he was three years old, the family returned to the United States and settled in Michigan. McCoy showed an early aptitude for mechanics, and was apprenticed to Scotland when he was fifteen, earning certification as a mechanical engineer. Despite his prodigious talents, McCoy struggled to find work in the face of racial discrimination, and ended taking a job as an oilman on the railroad. While working on trains he began designing inventions, and in 1872 invented a lubricating cup designed to distribute oil evenly over train engines. McCoy patented this design, which allowed trains to run for long periods of time without having to make maintenance stops. He continued to invent, ultimately receiving nearly sixty patents, which included an ironing board and lawn sprinkler. Other inventors attempted to mimic his machines, but companies demanded ‘the real McCoy’, thus coining the famous phrase. McCoy’s name did not appear on many of his products, but in 1920 he formed a manufacturing company bearing his name. In 1922, McCoy and his wife were in a car accident, killing his wife and critically injuring him. Having never fully recovered from his wounds, Elijah McCoy died in 1929 aged eighty-five, and remains one of the most accomplished black inventors in American history.
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