The Real McCoy: An inventor’s story worth staging

November 12th, 2007 by Mitch Brisebois

Inventors have advanced the world’s technology since… er… the discovery of fire. We are seldom the focus of storytelling, or mass-media entertainment. Here’s an oddity. Andrew Moodie’s play is staging this month in various locales around Ontario Canada. It’s about the life of inventor Elijah McCoy – inventor of an automatic lubricator for steam engines in 1872.

He was a prolific inventor – amassing over 50 patents. He was also a Canadian – born in Colchester South, Ontario. He became an engineer in Scotland, and moved to Detroit to ply his profession. Wikipedia describes him as an Afro-Canadian inventor. Most American school books don’t mention his Canadian heritage. What’s most fascinating about McCoy is that he invented a device that saved the railroad industry a ton of money. But because of the times, customers couldn’t know that the inventor was black. His name did surface though and became well-known in the train business.

The success of his product led to inferior copy-cat products. This led to the phrase “Is this the REAL McCoy?” [tags]Elijah McCoy, inventor[/tags]