By Cedric M. Stroud

Granville T. Woods was a prolific inventor who obtained over 60 United States and international patents for his inventions. Although most researchers have published that Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio, Rayvon Fouche, author of Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation, Baltimore & London: The John Hopkins University Press, 2003, has found that on April 23, 1856 he was born in Australia. His mother’s father was a Malay Indian and his father’s parents were Australian Aborigines.

Though some researchers state that Woods was raised in Ohio, the April 1895 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, page 762, states that when he was 10 years old, he began working in an Australian railroad repair shop. “He soon made himself familiar with all its departments, and with his spare earnings engaged private instruction from the master mechanic of the establishment”. The article goes on to state that Woods came to America with his parents when he was 16 years old and that he became a locomotive engineer on the Iron Mountain railroad in Missouri.

According to Fouche, it is also unclear as to when, where, and whether Woods received two years of college training in electrical and mechanical engineering as he claimed, but indications are that he did at some point between 1872 and 1876. Some books state that he was primarily self-taught, having studied electricity reading books from the public library as well as books borrowed from friends. Regardless of how Woods obtained his technical knowledge, he obviously excelled in his skills and abilities to become a prolific inventor in the field of electricity.

Woods probably developed some of his inventive ideas through some of the jobs he would soon hold. From 1878 until 1880, Woods was employed as an engineer on the Ironsides, a British steam ship. He later did short stints for the Pomeroy railroad and as an engineer for the Dayton and Southeastern Railroad, both located in the State of Ohio.

By 1881, Woods started a factory in Cincinnati, Ohiowhere he developed telephone, telegraph, and electrical equipment. On June 3, 1884, he obtained his first patent, #288,894, for a steam boiler furnace.

On December 2, 1884, he obtained patent #308,817 for a telephone transmitter that made long distance calls possible with greater clarity and better sound than had previously been available. A year later, Woods obtained patent #315,368 for an “Apparatus for transmission of messages by electricity” or a “telegraphony”, as he nicknamed it. The telegraphony combined the functions of the telegraph and the telephone and would make it easy for a telegraph operator unfamiliar with or in training for Morse code to be able to speak by voice instead. Woods sold both patents to the American Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts.

In spite of these early achievements, Woods struggled to obtain enough finances to support his inventiveness. Inventors may do their own patent research, draft their own designs, or develop a working model at their own expense, but may seek funding sources such as investors, partners, corporations, and even family and friends, to get their invention patented and on the market.

Woods made several deals with partners and investors who tried to take advantage of him. He had to go to court in some cases to secure his rights and clear his name. His expert knowledge of his inventions proved to be an advantage for him in most of these situations.

Woods was also faced with numerous interference patent hearings. If an inventor files a patent application for which there is another patent application pending that closely matches, then the Patent Office may determine that the patents “interfere” or conflict with each other. The Commissioner of the Patent Office can hold a hearing with these applicants to hear their testimonies in order to assess who was the first to have the idea, how consistent and advanced they were in pursuing its development, and whether there were some unique aspects that distinguished their invention from the other applicant’s. The patent would be awarded to the inventor whose evidence was most convincing.

Woods was successful in two patent interference hearings against Thomas Edison. Afterwards, a Cleveland, Ohionewspaper dubbed him “The Black Edison”. Lewis Latimer, the African-American inventor who headed Edison’s legal department, and who usually testified in interference hearings on his behalf, very likely was involved in these hearings.

Woods did not become rich through his inventions, but appeared to have done well financially towards the end of his career. Fouche writes that from 1900 until his death in 1910, 20 of his last 22 inventions were sold to General Electric or Westinghouse, the two major electric companies at the time.

Among the highlights of this fascinating career, Woods had 15 patents related to electric railways, including “the third rail”, commonly seen in subway and trolley systems. He also developed automatic air brakes, an automatic safety cutout for electric circuits, and an amusement apparatus, i.e. a roller coaster type ride.

For further reading:

Haber, Louis. Black Pioneers of Science and Invention. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.

Cedric Michael Stroud, Founder and President of the African American History Publishing Company, LLC, (AAHPC, LLC), has conducted over 40 years of independent research on the history of Black inventors and scientists. His company’s first publication is the Man Know Thyself 2022 Calendar: Centuries of Inventions and Innovations by Persons of Black / African Descent.