All about Elijah McCoy
By Juwon Tom Kwon Lee (5C) Sat 8 Oct 2023
Who is he?
Elijah McCoy was a black American-Canadian inventor.
He was born in Canada in 1844 and died in October 10, 1929
Who are his parents?
His parents were two formerly enslaved people.
They escaped slavery and fled to Ontario, Canada from the United States of America.
Elijah’s parents were poor but managed to save enough money to send him to school.
How did he grow up? Where did he go to school?What was his job?
At the age of 15 , Elijah McCoy went to Scotland and studied mechanical
engineering in the university of Edinburgh.
After he came back to the United States, he was a trained and qualified engineer, but he struggled to get a job that he wanted to be.
Instead, he accepted a job as a firefighter/oilman.
What did he do?
The train at the time was very inconvenient.
When the train is moving, there is a lot of friction.
They often stopped because the engine overheated so it had to cool down first just to replace the oil.
Elijah McCoy understood this problem so he invented a device that automatically oiled locomotive parts so the trains kept on moving, that device was called the automatic lubricating oil cup.
How did the invention help? Why is it important?
Elijah McCoy’s lubricating oil cup was soon so popular that other engineers tried to copy his idea/design but all failed.
Everybody wanted to make sure that it was the original, so that is where ‘The Real McCoy’ originated from his genius invention, which is the automatic lubricating oiling cup/device.
No matter what his competitors came up with, Elijah’s skills were unmatched.
His invention made trains have less friction while moving.
Using trains was much more efficient and quicker.
Patents of black inventors.
Slaves owners usually took the credit of their slaves' inventions because of racism.
Normally, black inventors did not get patent protection which means that their ideas can be easily stolen.
Other inventions
Elijah didn’t stop inventing and invented many things and had 57 patents.
He invented:
Lawn sprinkler
Foldable ironing board
He invented lots of other things