Nothing Less than the Real McCoy

Born in 1844 to parents who had escaped slavery, Elijah McCoy was the genius Canadian-American engineer behind the well known phrase, "the Real McCoy."

His parents had escaped from Kentucky to Ontario, Canada via the Underground Railroad, and Elijah was schooled in Canada until the age of 15. Having shown an aptitude for mechanics, he was sent to Scotland to attend the University of Edinburgh. After eight years of study, he completed an apprenticeship program in engineering and earned his certificate as a mechanical engineer.

He returned to the U.S., where his parents had moved in the interim, but he was unable to find employment because no one would hire a Black engineer. The only job he could find was as a railroad laborer at Michigan Central Railboard as a fireman and oiler.

But that provided him with inspiration.

Elijah embarked on a series of railway-related inventions. One of his inventions was for an automatic lubricator for steam engines which was used on locomotives and ships (1879, U.S. patent 129,843).

In Story of the Negro (1909), Booker T. Washington recognized Elijah as having produced more patents than any other Black inventor up to that time. Elijah would ultimately hold 57 patents.

McCoy's automatic oil-drip cup revolutionized how machinery was lubricated. In the Post-Civil War the U.S. experienced a rail boom during the rapid growth of Westward expansion. The First Transcontinental Railway was completed in 1869. Steam engines required constant lubrication for their many moving parts to prevent overheating and malfunction which required frequent stops. Also, manual application of lubricant to heated metal was dangerous and time consuming. But these moving parts had to be lubricated to prevent the machinery from seizing, breaking, overheating, and causing catastrophic accidents.

McCoy's automatic lubricator offered continuous lubrication while the train was running without impacting the schedule or putting workers at risk. It increased efficiency so dramatically that by 1899 it was the preferred style of lubricator and was used on nearly all North American railroads.

Elijah McCoy's device was not the only one of its kind, but it was the safest and the best. No wonder the buyers and railroad workers insisted on "the real McCoy." Their lives depended on it.