Elijah McCoy

Elijah McCoy was born in 1844 in Colchester, Ontario, to George and Mildred Goins McCoy. At the time, they were fugitive slaves who had escaped from Kentucky to Ontario via helpers through the Underground Railroad.{{Cite book|last=Marshall|first=Albert|title=The "real McCoy" of Ypsilanti|date=1989|publisher=Marland Pub.|location=Ypsilanti, MI|asin=B002O5L4XG}} George and Mildred arrived in Colchester Township, Essex County, in what was then called Upper Canada in 1837 via Detroit. Elijah McCoy had eleven siblings. Ten of the children were born in Ontario from Alfred (1836) to William (1859).

Upper Canadian schools were segregated under the Common Schools Act as amended in 1850,{{cite web|url=http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/issues/racism/racepolicydialogue/ccs|title=Tuition Fee Increases and the History of Racial Exclusion in Canadian Legal Education|at=Racial Discrimination in Legal Education: A Brief History|first=Charles C|last=Smith|date=December 2004|website=Ontario Human Rights Commission|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120417033053/http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/issues/racism/racepolicydialogue/ccs|archive-date=2012-04-17|url-status=dead}}{{Cite canlaw|short title =An Act for the better establishment and maintenance of Common Schools in Upper Canada|abbr =S.Prov.C.|year =1850|chapter = 48|section=19|link= https://books.google.com/books?id=CFQ1AQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA1421&ots=aqOMGZeekt&pg=PA1263#v=onepage&f=false}} and McCoy was educated in black schools of Colchester Township. At the age of 15, in 1859, Elijah McCoy was sent to Scotland. While there he was apprenticed and, after studying at the University of Edinburgh, certified as a mechanical engineer.{{cite web |title=Elijah McCoy (1844–1929) |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/alumni/services/notable-alumni/alumni-in-history/elijah-mccoy |website=The University of Edinburgh |date=21 July 2015 |access-date=2 May 2022 |language=en |archive-date=2 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502162738/https://www.ed.ac.uk/alumni/services/notable-alumni/alumni-in-history/elijah-mccoy |url-status=live }} Based on 1860 Tax Assessment Rolls, land deeds of sale, and the 1870 US Census it can be determined George McCoy's family moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan in the United States in 1859–60; by the time Elijah returned, his family had established themselves on the farm of John and Maryann Starkweather in Ypsilanti. George used his skills as a tobacconist in order to establish a tobacco and cigar business.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

When Elijah McCoy arrived in Michigan, he could find work only as a fireman and oiler at the Michigan Central Railroad. In a home-based machine shop in Ypsilanti, McCoy also did more highly skilled work, such as developing improvements and inventions. He invented an automatic lubricator for oiling the steam engines of locomotives and ships, patenting it in 1872 as "Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines" ({{US patent|129843}}).

Similar automatic oilers had been patented previously; one is the displacement lubricator, which had already attained widespread use and whose technological descendants continued to be widely used into the 20th century. Lubricators were a boon for railroads, as they enabled trains to run faster and more profitably with less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance. By 1899, the Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics reported that the McCoy lubricator was in use on almost all North American railroads.{{cite journal |last1=Owens |first1=A. A. |last2=Jackson |first2=Harvey C. |title=Report on Negroes in the State of Michigan |journal=Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics |date=1899 |volume=16 |page=328 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qj08AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Elijah+McCoy+%22michigan%22&pg=PA328 |access-date=2 May 2022 |quote="Equally prominent is Mr. Elijah McCoy, engineer and inventor, of Detroit. Mr. McCoy is not only known throughout the State, but also all over the United States and Canada, as a competent engineer and inventor of the McCoy lubricator, which is in use today on nearly all railroads throughout the United States and Canada." |archive-date=12 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512015650/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report/Qj08AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Elijah+McCoy+%22michigan%22&pg=PA328&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}

McCoy continued to refine his devices and design new ones, and was noted in periodicals of the time, including the Railroad Gazette.{{cite news |author1=S. Wright Dunning |author2=M. N. Forney |author2-link=Matthias N. Forney |title=New Railroad Patents |access-date=2 May 2022 |work=Railroad Gazette |date=26 October 1872 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uo6AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Elijah+McCoy%22+%22railway%22&pg=PA461 |pages=461 |quote="Mr. Elijah McCoy, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, is the patentee of this invention, which he describes as follows..." |archive-date=12 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512015632/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Railway_Age/6uo6AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Elijah+McCoy%22+%22railway%22&pg=PA461&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }} Most of his patents dealt with lubricating systems, including a further patent in 1898 which added a glass 'sight-feed' tube to monitor the rate of lubricant delivery ({{US patent|614307}}).

After the turn of the century, he attracted notice among his Black contemporaries. Booker T. Washington, in Story of the Negro (1909), recognized him as having produced more patents than any other Black inventor up to that time. 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. In 1920, near the end of his career, he formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company.{{cite web |title=McCoy, Elijah |url=https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/mccoy-elijah |website=Encyclopedia of Detroit |publisher=Detroit Historical Society |access-date=2 May 2022 |archive-date=2 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502162150/https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/mccoy-elijah |url-status=live }}

{{Main|The real McCoy}}

This popular expression, typically meaning the real thing, has, among other sources, been attributed to Elijah McCoy's oil-drip cup invention. The theory was that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name,{{cite web |url=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/mccoy.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030823125258/http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/mccoy.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2003-08-23 |title=Elijah McCoy, Inventor of the Week |publisher=Lemelson-MIT Program |date=May 1996|access-date=August 18, 2011}} and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with "the real McCoy system".{{cite web |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mcc1.htm |author=Quinion, Michael |publisher=World Wide Words |title=The Real McCoy |access-date=27 January 2006 |archive-date=22 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110622085644/http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mcc1.htm |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.billcasselman.com/whats_in_a_canadian_name/wiacn_real_mccoy.htm |work=Bill Casselman’s Canadian Word of the Day |title=The Real McCoy |year=2006 |first1=William Gordon |last1=Casselman |access-date=March 5, 2011 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427150035/http://billcasselman.com/whats_in_a_canadian_name/wiacn_real_mccoy.htm |archive-date=April 27, 2011 }} This theory is mentioned in Elijah McCoy's biography at the National Inventors Hall of Fame.{{cite web |url=http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/167.html |title=Elijah McCoy, inventor profile |publisher=National Inventors Hall of Fame |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228104640/http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/167.html |archive-date=2008-12-28 }}

The December 1966 issue of Ebony, in an advertisement for Old Taylor Bourbon made the first mention of Elijah McCoy in this context: "But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name."{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_5q3AoSbTGAC&dq=elijah+mccoy&pg=PA157|title=Old Taylor bourbon advertisement|magazine=Ebony|date=December 1966|page=157|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140124040736/https://books.google.com/books?id=_5q3AoSbTGAC&lpg=PA157&dq=elijah%20mccoy&pg=PA157#v=onepage&q=elijah%20mccoy&f=false|archive-date=January 24, 2014|url-status=live}} Other possibilities for its origin have been proposed, including it being a corruption of the Scottish name "Reay Mackay"{{cite journal |last1=German |first1=Pamela |last2=Robinson |first2=Veronica |title=Is Elijah the 'Real McCoy'? |journal=Ypsilanti Historical Society |url=https://aadl.org/ypsigleanings/19527 |date=Fall 2008|access-date=2 May 2022 |archive-date=8 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808094608/https://aadl.org/ypsigleanings/19527 |url-status=live }} and while it has undoubtedly been applied as an epithet to many other McCoys, its association with Elijah has become iconic in American parlance.{{cite book |last=Boyd |first=Herb |date=2017 |title=Black Detroit: A People's History of Self-Determination |publisher=Amistad |isbn=978-0-06-234662-9 |author-link=Herb Boyd |page=420}}

McCoy married for the second time in 1873 to Mary Eleanora Delaney. The couple moved to Detroit when McCoy found work there. Mary McCoy (died 1923) helped found the Phillis Wheatley Home for Aged Colored Men in 1898.{{cite news |url=http://info.detnews.com/redesign/history/story/historytemplate.cfm?id=70 |author=Baulch, Vivian M. |title=How Detroit got its first black hospital |date=1995-11-26 |publisher=The Detroit News |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710204002/http://info.detnews.com/redesign/history/story/historytemplate.cfm?id=70 |archive-date=2012-07-10 }} Elijah McCoy died in the Eloise Infirmary in Nankin Township, now Westland, Michigan, on 10 October 1929, at the age of 85, as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident seven years earlier in which his wife Mary died.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thoughtco.com/elijah-mccoy-profile-1992158|title=Biography of Elijah McCoy, American Inventor|last=Bellis|first=Mary|website=ThoughtCo|language=en|access-date=2019-09-02|archive-date=1 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001120358/https://www.thoughtco.com/elijah-mccoy-profile-1992158|url-status=live}} He is buried in Detroit Memorial Park East in Warren, Michigan.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qzeJAgAAQBAJ&dq=Detroit+Memorial+Park+East+elijah+mccoy&pg=PA112 |title=Black Americans 17Th Century to 21St Century: Black Struggles and Successes |isbn=9781490717333 |access-date=15 December 2018 |archive-date=15 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215070016/https://books.google.ca/books?id=qzeJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA112&dq=Detroit+Memorial+Park+East+elijah+mccoy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjp04n27qDfAhWEAnwKHd09AFEQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=Detroit%20Memorial%20Park%20East%20elijah%20mccoy&f=false |url-status=live |last1=Jordan |first1=John H. |date=7 November 2013 |publisher=Trafford }}

• 1966, an ad for Old Taylor bourbon cited Elijah McCoy with a photo and the expression "the real McCoy", ending with the tag line: "But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name."
• 2006, Canadian playwright Andrew Moodie's The Real McCoy portrayed McCoy's life, the challenges he faced as an African American, and the development of his inventions. It was first produced in Toronto and has also been produced in the United States, for example in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 2011, where it was performed by the Black Rep Theatre.
• In her 2001 novel Noughts & Crosses, Malorie Blackman describes a racial dystopia in which the roles of black and white people are reversed; Elijah McCoy is among the black scientists, inventors, and pioneers mentioned in a history class that Blackman "never learned about in school".{{cite book|last=Blackman|first=Malorie|title=Noughts & Crosses|location=New York|publisher=Random House|date=2001}}
• A 1945 song by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, "Isn't it Kinda Fun", from the musical State Fair, includes the lyrical phrase "...this is the real McCoy."

File:Elijah McCoy Commemorative Historical Marker Ypsilanti Michigan.jpg

• In 1974, the state of Michigan put a historical marker (P25170) at the McCoys' former home at 5720 Lincoln Avenue, and at his gravesite.{{cite web |url=http://www.michmarkers.com/pages/L0392.htm |title=Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery |publisher=MichMarkers.com - The Michigan Historical Marker Web Site |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070710151604/http://www.michmarkers.com/startup.asp?startpage=L0392.htm |archive-date=July 10, 2007}}
• In 1975, Detroit celebrated Elijah McCoy Day by placing a historic marker at the site of his home. The city also named a nearby street for him.{{cite web |url=http://detroit1701.psc.isr.umich.edu/ElijahMcCoy.htm |title=Elijah McCoy Home Informational Site |publisher=University of Michigan |work=Detroit - The History and Future of the Motor City |access-date=17 April 2008 |archive-date=6 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006220750/http://detroit1701.psc.isr.umich.edu/ElijahMcCoy.htm |url-status=live }}
• In 1994, Michigan installed a historical marker (S0642) at his first workshop in Ypsilanti, Michigan.{{cite web |url=http://www.michmarkers.com/pages/S0642.htm |title=Elijah McCoy |publisher=MichMarkers.com - The Michigan Historical Marker Web Site |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030200618/http://www.michmarkers.com/startup.asp?startpage=S0642.htm |archive-date=30 October 2007}}
• In 2001, McCoy was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria, Virginia.
• In 2012, The Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the first USPTO satellite office) was opened in Detroit, Michigan.{{cite web |url=https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/uspto-locations/detroit-michigan |title=Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office |publisher=USPTO |access-date=May 2, 2017 |archive-date=9 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309072317/https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/uspto-locations/detroit-michigan |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/07/detroit_beats_silicon_valley_i.html |title=Detroit beats Silicon Valley in opening first-ever patent office outside Washington, D.C. |first1=Melissa |last1=Anders |date=July 13, 2012 |publisher=MLive Media Group |access-date=July 13, 2012 |archive-date=19 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120719102121/http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/07/detroit_beats_silicon_valley_i.html |url-status=live }}{{cite news |url=http://www.inc.com/hot-spots-detroit/eric-markowitz/what-does-a-patent-office-mean-for-detroit.html |title=What Does a Patent Office Mean For Detroit? |first1=Eric |last1=Markowitz |date=March 1, 2012 |work=Inc. |access-date=July 10, 2012 |archive-date=22 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120522185649/http://www.inc.com/hot-spots-detroit/eric-markowitz/what-does-a-patent-office-mean-for-detroit.html |url-status=live }}{{efn-ua |"And the people of Detroit have time and again been they very sort of pioneers who shape our country with innovative audacity. Near the end of the 19th century, an inventor named Elijah McCoy came to this city, drawn by its potential, and history was made-with more than 57 U.S. patents by the end of his remarkable life, Elijah's vision transformed the railroad system, and with it our trade economy. That's the story of American possibility, realized through the power of the American patent-and I can think of no more fitting name to adorn the walls of this new office than the "Real McCoy" himself."{{cite web |url=https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/remarks-open-elijah-j-mccoy-uspto-detroit-location |title=Remarks to Open Elijah J. McCoy USPTO Detroit Location |first1=David |last1=Kappos |author-link1=David Kappos |date=July 13, 2012 |publisher=USPTO |access-date=March 8, 2017 |archive-date=9 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309071909/https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/remarks-open-elijah-j-mccoy-uspto-detroit-location |url-status=dead}}}}
• In 2022, a Google Doodle appeared in Canada and the U.S. marking his 178th birthday on May 2.{{Citation |title=Celebrating Elijah McCoy |url=http://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2022/celebrating-elijah-mccoy-6753651837109470.2-2xa.gif |language=en |access-date=2022-05-02 |archive-date=2 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502115417/https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2022/celebrating-elijah-mccoy-6753651837109470.2-2xa.gif |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last1=Antonimuthu |first1=Rajamanickam |title=Elijah McCoy Google Doodle |website=YouTube |date=2 May 2022 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_MWkMVcOdo |access-date=2 May 2022 |archive-date=2 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220502080331/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_MWkMVcOdo |url-status=live }}

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{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130519210419/http://www.r-go.ca/elijah_mccoy_picture.htm Elijah McCoy photos], Argot language center
• {{Find a Grave|6807620}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081228104640/http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/167.html "Elijah McCoy"], National Inventors Hall of Fame
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyI4wozVb94 How a hydrostatic lubricator works.] YouTube video. Cutaway example used as a training aid at the Hocking Valley Steam School in Ohio.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:McCoy, Elijah}}

Category:1844 births

Category:1929 deaths

Category:Canadian people of African-American descent

Category:Engineers from Michigan

Category:19th-century American inventors

Category:American businesspeople

Category:People from Essex County, Ontario

Category:People from Ypsilanti, Michigan

Category:American steam engine engineers

Category:African-American inventors

Category:Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame inductees

Category:Tribologists

Category:Inventors from Michigan

Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh

Category:Emigrants from pre-Confederation Ontario to the United States