Andrew Jackson Beard facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Andrew Jackson Beard
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| Born | 1849 |
| Died | 1921 Jefferson County Alms House, West Virginia
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Andrew Jackson Beard (1849–1921) was an amazing African American inventor. He created two important improvements for the automatic railroad car coupler in 1897 and 1899. Because of his great work, he was honored and added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio in 2006.
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Andrew Jackson Beard's Early Life
Andrew Beard was born in 1849. For the first fifteen years of his life, he was an enslaved person on a farm in Eastlake, Alabama. After he gained his freedom, he got married. He then became a farmer in Pinson, a town near Birmingham, Alabama.
Andrew Jackson Beard's First Inventions
Andrew Beard was very clever and always thinking of new ideas.
- In 1872, he built his own flour mill. He ran this mill successfully for many years.
- In 1881, he invented a new type of plow. This "double plow" could adjust how far apart its blades were (U.S. Patent 240,642).
- He sold this plow design in 1884 for $4,000. That's like almost $100,000 today!
- After selling his first invention, Beard went back to farming for a while.
- In 1887, he invented another improved double plow (U.S. Patent 347,220). This one allowed farmers to change the angle of the plow blades.
- He sold this second plow for $5,200. This amount would be about $130,000 today. He used this money to buy real estate.
Andrew Jackson Beard's Railroad Inventions
After working with real estate, Andrew Beard became very interested in engines.
- In 1882, he patented a design for a new kind of rotary steam engine. He received two patents for this invention (U.S. Patent 433,847 and U.S. Patent 478,271).
- His most famous inventions were for railroad cars. In 1890 and 1892, he created two improvements for the Janney coupler.
- The Janney coupler was a device used to hook railroad cars together.
- Before Beard's invention, connecting cars was very dangerous. Workers had to manually place a metal pin into a link between the cars.
- Andrew Beard himself had been in an accident and lost a leg while working with these couplers.
- His new design made the coupling process automatic. This meant workers no longer had to risk their lives.
- Beard's patents for these improvements were U.S. Patent 594,059 (granted in 1897) and U.S. Patent 624,901 (granted in 1899).
- The 1897 patent was sold for $50,000. That was a huge amount of money back then!
How Beard's Coupler Worked
Beard's improved railroad car coupler had two parts that looked like horizontal jaws. These jaws would automatically lock together when the cars joined. His design was one of the first automatic couplers to be widely used in the United States.
In 1887, the same year Beard patented his first coupler improvement, the U.S. Congress passed an important law. This law was called the Federal Safety Appliance Act. It made it a rule that all railroad cars had to use automatic couplers. This law helped make train travel much safer for everyone.
Little is known about Andrew Beard's life after his last patent in 1897. He passed away in 1921. His inventions greatly improved safety on railroads and helped shape modern transportation.
