Elijah mccoy when was he born

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 folding ironing board and a lawn 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. Lubricators with the McCoy name were not manufactured until , near the end of his career, when he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company to produce them. Historians have not agreed on the importance of McCoy's contribution to the field of lubrication. He is credited in some biographical sketches with revolutionizing the railroad or machine industries with his devices.

Early twentieth-century lubrication literature barely mentions him; for example, his name is absent from E. Ahrons' Lubrication of Locomotives , which does identify several other early pioneers and companies of the field. This popular expression, typically meaning the real thing , has been incorrectly attributed to Elijah McCoy's oil-drip cup invention. One theory is that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name, and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy system".

It can be traced to the December issue of Ebony in an advertisement for Old Taylor bourbon whiskey : "But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name. Other possibilities for its origin have been proposed and while it has undoubtedly been applied as an epithet to many other McCoys, its association with Elijah has become iconic. In James S. It's the 'real McCoy,' as Jim Hicks says. Remember me. I forgot my password. Why sign up? Create Account. Suggest an Edit.

Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below. Accessed 11 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published January 27, ; Last Edited March 01, The Canadian Encyclopedia , s. Thank you for your submission Our team will be reviewing your submission and get back to you with any further questions. Thanks for contributing to The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Article by Niko Block. His parents were former slaves from Kentucky who escaped to Canada on the Underground Railroad. The family eventually returned to the United States, settling in Michigan. As a teen, McCoy traveled to Scotland to study mechanical engineering.

He had trouble finding skilled work when he returned to America. Instead, he became a fireman with the Michigan Central Railroad. One of his duties was oiling steam engine parts. The oiling had to be done frequently and required the train to stop.

Invention: In , McCoy developed an automatic lubricator that spread oil evenly over a train's engine while it was still moving. The invention allowed trains to run for long periods of time without stopping, which saved both time and money.