GRANVILLE WOODS

Many professionals in the electrical industry knew Granville T. Woods as the "Black Edison". Woods was considered by many to be the greatest electrician in the world. Today, we take for granted the contributions he has made in the electrical field, but his invention are monuments to his achievements in that field.

Granville Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio on April 23, 1856. He achieved a great deal, despite only attending school until the age of ten. At an early age, he went to work in a machine shop that repaired railroad equipment. This is where Woods' interest in railroads and electricity began.

At the young age of sixteen, Woods moved to Missouri. Woods got his first job in Missouri as a fireman, but later Woods received a job as an engineer at the Iron Mountain Railroads. It was at this job where Woods gained most of his knowledge about railroads and electricity. Woods spent all of his leisure time studying and experimenting with electricity. Woods read whatever books on electricity he could buy or borrow. When he had gotten as much knowledge as he could from these books, he went east to take a course in electrical and mechanical engineering. For the most part, he was self-taught (Haber 43).

By 1881, Woods settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. Soon after his settlement, Woods developed and organized his own electrical company. The company was called the Woods Electrical Company. As Woods' reputation grew, many of the big corporations of that time were interested in Woods' work. A few of these companies were General Electric, Westinghouse, American Bell Telephone, and American Engineering. "However, the demand for his electrical devices became so widespread that he abandoned the idea of marketing his inventions and instead devoted his whole time to invention" (Haber 46). Woods' company started in 1887 and ended in 1893.

Woods is also known for his work outside the field of electricity, crediting 15 patents outside the field of electricity. Robert Hayden writes "So far as this writer is aware there is no inventor of the colored race whose genius has covered quite so wide field of Granville T. Woods; nor one whose achievements have attracted more universal attention and favorable comment from technical and scientific journals both in this country and abroad" (Hayden 134).

Electricity and Railroads were Woods' passion. "In the field of electric railways alone, Woods was granted fifteen patents, and held a still larger number of patents on systems and devices for the control and distribution of electricity" (Haber 48). Woods had over sixty patents to his credit when he died in 1910. Many of his patents were assigned to major corporations after his death. A few of Woods' inventions that were assigned were the electromagnetic brake apparatus, the electromechanical brake, and the galvanic battery.

Despite all of Woods' success, he had a few obstacles along the way. The most obvious obstacle was that Woods was African-American. It was hard for Woods to learn about electricity and railroads because few people were willing to teach an African-American anything about science. Woods was not offered a lot of jobs because of his race, despite the fact he was more than qualified for those jobs.

One of Woods' most difficult obstacles was the many legal battles he had to endure. In 1887, Woods made what were perhaps his most important inventions, the "induction telegraph". This invention dramatically improved the safety of the railroad system. "That the invention was important was evidenced by the fact that Woods had to go through three patent suits to protect his rights" (Klein 72). Two of these suits were brought about by Thomas Edison and the third by a man named Phelps. Woods won all three of these patents suits.