blueprint (copy)
On this date in 1897, Andrew Beard received a patent for a device he called the Jenny Coupler.
The Jenny Coupler automatically joined cars by simply allowing them to bump into each other, or as Beard described it, the "horizontal jaws engage each other to connect the cars."
This Black inventor sold the rights to his design for $50,000.00 and revolutionized the railroad industry. His patent number was #594059.
Created Equal: The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators
By James Michael Brodie
Copyright 1993, by Bill Adler Books, Inc.
William Morrow and Co. Inc., New York
ISBN 0-688-11536-5
