BLACK HISTORY FLASHBACK: 126 years ago today in 1887, Granville T. Woods patents the multiplex telegraph, enabling trains to communicate by telegraph and dispatchers to locate trains. Granville T. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 23, 1856, to free African-Americans. He held various engineering and industrial jobs before establishing a company to develop electrical apparatus. Known as "Black Edison," he registered nearly 60 patents in his lifetime, including a telephone transmitter, a trolley wheel and the multiplex telegraph (over which he defeated a lawsuit by Thomas Edison). Woods’s second most important invention was the power pick-up device in 1901, which is the basis of the so-called “third rail” currently used by electric-powered transit systems. From 1902 to 1905, he received patents for an improved air-brake system. By the time of his death, on January 30, 1910, in New York City, Granville T. Woods had invented 15 appliances for electric railways. received nearly 60 patents, many of which were assigned to the major manufacturers of electrical equipment that are a part of today’s daily life. Woods died in 1910.
