Supporting Question
Why does Granville T Woods’ story matter?
For the formative performance task, use the sources to answer the following questions:
What are the important events in this person’s life? What emotions did this person experience throughout their life?
What did this person invent? What other inventions have been done in this area?
What do we know about the biases this person faced and how they responded? How did their responses compare to other people of their time?
How much—if it all—did the person’s life change after their inventions? Did they receive credit for their invention? Did they profit from it?
In what ways did this person address social issues of their day?
Featured Sources
Source A
U.S. Patent No. 373,383, Application for Railway Telegraphony, 1887
This technology made it possible for moving trains to communicate with each other.
Source B
Krutka — Abuse Allegations
In 1853, George W. Murray was born a slave in Sumter County. Despite a state law against slaves reading and writing, he somehow learned to do both. When slavery was abolished in 1865, Murray became a farmer and, in 1871 at the age of eighteen, he applied for admission to the local all-black school. Amazingly he soon found himself a teacher rather than a student. Three years later in 1874, he began attending the University of South Carolina, during the brief time it was integrated. He studied there until the Wade Hampton-led White Conservatives took political control of the Palmetto State and eliminated all black students from the university.
The white conservatives remained in power until “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman and his farmer forces took the state over in 1890. In these post-Civil War years, anti-black violence was the order of the day, and the vote was increasingly denied to African Americans. Poverty and the noose became the essence of black life in South Carolina.
Source C
Granville T. Woods - Black History Month, The Wise Channel, 2020.
Source D
Granville T. Woods, National Hall of Fame of Engineers, 2006.
As the multiplex telegraph took off quickly and proved very useful, Woods found himself facing patent suits filed by Thomas Edison. Though Woods won, Edison was persistent in pursuing the invention. He even offered Woods a partnership in one of his businesses, but Woods refused, preferring to remain an independent inventor.
After receiving his patent for the multiplex telegraph, Woods established his own business, the Woods Electric Co. in Cincinnati. In the hopes of doing more business, in 1890 he moved his company to New York City. Here, he was able to partner with his brother, Lyates Woods, who was also an inventor.
Woods' later inventions dealt with more efficient use of electricity. He created an overhead conducting system allowing rail and trolley cars to run on electric current instead of steam power, and he devised a third rail that still is used on many rail lines. The third rail carries electricity via electromagnetic switches and pulls trains along. Additionally, Woods developed an automatic air brake used to slow or stop trains.