Multiplex Pins and Buttons
Description: Granville Tailer Woods was an African-American inventor who held more than 50 patents. He is also the first American of African ancestry to be a mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he concentrated most of his work on trains and streetcars. One of his notable inventions was the Multiplex Telegraph, a device that sent messages between train stations and moving trains. His work assured a safer and better public transportation system for the cities of the United States. Woods developed several improvements to the railroad system, and was referred to by some as the "Black Edison." In 1885, Woods patented an apparatus which was a combination of a telephone and a telegraph. The device, which he called "tel...
