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The New York Times is doing a series of obituaries on long-dead people who weren't properly acknowledged at the time.
Granville T. Woods
An inventor known as the ‘Black Edison.’
He found that recognition came at a hefty price.
By Amisha Padnani
It was the dawn of the electrical age, and Woods was elbowing greats like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and George Westinghouse, garnering headlines in newspapers across the country and even earning the nickname “Black Edison.” Woods spoke eloquently and dressed elegantly, often in all black. He would tell people he was born in Australia, a fact many biographers now believe he fabricated to garner respect and dissociate himself from slavery in the United States.
“Woods’s life — at times closer to a nightmare than the American dream — clearly illustrates the harsh realities of being a black inventor at the end of the 19th century.”
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