First page of US patent 129,843 for Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines
Elijah J. McCoy (May 2, 1844 [A] – October 10, 1929) was a Canadian-American engineer ofAfrican-American descent who inventedlubrication systems forsteam engines. Born free on theOntario shore ofLake Erie to parents who fledenslavement in Kentucky, he traveled to the United States as a young child when his family returned in 1847, becoming a U.S. resident and citizen. His inventions and accomplishments were honored in 2012 when theUnited States Patent and Trademark Office named its first regional office, inDetroit, Michigan, the "Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Patent Office".[3]
Early life
Elijah McCoy was born in 1844 inColchester, Ontario, to George and Mildred Goins McCoy. At the time, they werefugitive slaves who had escaped fromKentucky to Ontario via helpers through theUnderground Railroad.[4] George and Mildred arrived in Colchester Township, Essex County, in what was then calledUpper Canada in 1837 viaDetroit. Elijah McCoy had eleven siblings. Ten of the children were born in Ontario from Alfred (1836) to William (1859).
Upper Canadian schools weresegregated under the Common Schools Act as amended in 1850,[5][6] and McCoy was educated in black schools of Colchester Township. At the age of 15, in 1859, Elijah McCoy was sent to Scotland. While there he was apprenticed and, after studying at theUniversity of Edinburgh, certified as amechanical engineer.[7] Based on 1860 Tax Assessment Rolls, land deeds of sale, and the 1870 US Census it can be determined George McCoy's family moved toYpsilanti, Michigan in the United States in 1859–60; by the time Elijah returned, his family had established themselves on the farm of John and Maryann Starkweather in Ypsilanti. George used his skills as atobacconist in order to establish a tobacco and cigar business.[citation needed]
Career
When Elijah McCoy arrived in Michigan, he could find work only as afireman andoiler at theMichigan Central Railroad. In a home-based machine shop in Ypsilanti, McCoy also did more highly skilled work, such as developing improvements and inventions. He invented anautomatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines of locomotives and ships, patenting it in 1872 as "Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines" (U.S. patent 129,843).
Similar automatic oilers had been patented previously; one is thedisplacement lubricator, which had already attained widespread use and whose technological descendants continued to be widely used into the 20th century. Lubricators were a boon forrailroads, as they enabled trains to run faster and more profitably with less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance.[8] By 1899, theMichigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics reported that the McCoy lubricator was in use on almost all North American railroads.[9]
McCoy continued to refine his devices and design new ones, and was noted in periodicals of the time, including theRailroad Gazette.[10] Most of his patents dealt with lubricating systems, including a further patent in 1898 which added a glass 'sight-feed' tube to monitor the rate of lubricant delivery (U.S. patent 614,307).
After the turn of the century, he attracted notice among hisBlack contemporaries.Booker T. Washington, inStory of the Negro (1909), recognized him as having produced more patents than any other Black inventor up to that time. This creativity gave McCoy an honored status in the Black community that has persisted to this day. He continued to invent until late in life, obtaining as many as 57 patents; most related to lubrication, but others also included a foldingironing board and alawn sprinkler. Lacking the capital with which to manufacture his lubricators in large numbers, he usually assigned his patent rights to his employers or sold them to investors. In 1920, near the end of his career, he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company.[11]
This popular expression, typically meaningthe real thing, has, among other sources, been attributed to Elijah McCoy's oil-drip cup invention. The theory was that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name,[12] and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy system".[13][14] This theory is mentioned in Elijah McCoy's biography at theNational Inventors Hall of Fame.[8]
The December 1966 issue ofEbony, in an advertisement forOld Taylor Bourbon made the first mention of Elijah McCoy in this context: "But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name."[15] Other possibilities for its origin have been proposed, including it being a corruption of the Scottish name "Reay Mackay"[16] and while it has undoubtedly been applied as an epithet to many other McCoys, its association with Elijah has become iconic in American parlance.[17]
Marriage and death
McCoy married for the second time in 1873 toMary Eleanora Delaney. The couple moved toDetroit when McCoy found work there. Mary McCoy (died 1923) helped found thePhillis Wheatley Home for Aged Colored Men in 1898.[18] Elijah McCoy died in theEloise Infirmary inNankin Township, nowWestland,Michigan, on 10 October 1929, at the age of 85, as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident seven years earlier in which his wife Mary died.[19] He is buried in Detroit Memorial Park East inWarren, Michigan.[20]
In popular culture
1966, an ad forOld Taylor bourbon cited Elijah McCoy with a photo and the expression "the real McCoy", ending with the tag line: "But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name."[15]
2006, Canadian playwright Andrew Moodie'sThe Real McCoy portrayed McCoy's life, the challenges he faced as an African American, and the development of his inventions. It was first produced inToronto[14] and has also been produced in the United States, for example inSaint Louis, Missouri, in 2011, where it was performed by the Black Rep Theatre.
In her 2001 novelNoughts & Crosses,Malorie Blackman describes a racial dystopia in which the roles of black and white people are reversed; Elijah McCoy is among the black scientists, inventors, and pioneers mentioned in a history class that Blackman "never learned about in school".[21]
In 2012, TheElijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the firstUSPTO satellite office) was opened in Detroit, Michigan.[25][26][27][B]
In 2022, a Google Doodle appeared in Canada and the U.S. marking his 178th birthday on May 2.[29][30]
References
Notes
^Sources give his birthdate as May 2, 1843; May 2, 1844; or less commonly March 27, 1843.
^"And the people of Detroit have time and again been they very sort of pioneers who shape our country with innovative audacity. Near the end of the 19th century, an inventor named Elijah McCoy came to this city, drawn by its potential, and history was made-with more than 57 U.S. patents by the end of his remarkable life, Elijah's vision transformed the railroad system, and with it our trade economy. That's the story of American possibility, realized through the power of the American patent-and I can think of no more fitting name to adorn the walls of this new office than the "Real McCoy" himself."[28]
^Owens, A. A.; Jackson, Harvey C. (1899)."Report on Negroes in the State of Michigan".Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics.16: 328.Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved2 May 2022.Equally prominent is Mr. Elijah McCoy, engineer and inventor, of Detroit. Mr. McCoy is not only known throughout the State, but also all over the United States and Canada, as a competent engineer and inventor of the McCoy lubricator, which is in use today on nearly all railroads throughout the United States and Canada.
^S. Wright Dunning;M. N. Forney (26 October 1872)."New Railroad Patents".Railroad Gazette. p. 461.Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved2 May 2022.Mr. Elijah McCoy, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, is the patentee of this invention, which he describes as follows...
^abCasselman, William Gordon (2006)."The Real McCoy".Bill Casselman’s Canadian Word of the Day. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved5 March 2011.
^German, Pamela; Robinson, Veronica (Fall 2008)."Is Elijah the 'Real McCoy'?".Ypsilanti Historical Society.Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved2 May 2022.
