User:Collector786/Sarah E. Goode

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=== Lead: Sarah Elisabeth Goode (1850 – April 8, 1905) was an American entrepreneur and inventor. On July 14, 1885, she received a patent for her cabinet bed She is believed to be the second African American woman to receive a US government patent. ===

(NOTE TO STUDENT PEER REVIEWERS: The sections for "Concept of the Folding Bed" and "Legacy" are from the stub article, but I have included them here. I need to address some typos in there and in the stub article's images.)

Early Life:

Sarah Elisabeth Goode was born in 1855 in Toledo, Ohio to Oliver and Harriet Jacobs. Her mother’s maiden name is believed to be Kaufman. Her parents had lived in Toledo, a stop on the Underground Railroad in the free state of Ohio, since at least the 1850s. Around the time of her birth, her father worked as a waiter, and her mother kept the house while also serving as an organizer for the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Toledo. By 1870, the Goode family had moved to Chicago, Illinois, and her father began working in carpentry. The family owned a property there, and her father had begun working as a carpenter. She soon married carpenter and stair builder Archibald Goode, and they started a family together. Their known children are daughters Estella, Inza (or Inez), Harriet (Hattie), Edna, and Sarah Goode. [Archibald considered himself as a stair builder and an upholster, and he and Sarah opened a furniture store.]

Invention Years:

In 1885, Sarah and her husband operated a furniture store at 513 State Street in Chicago. The space was located at Bennett Medical College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery which housed the storefront. A Chicago Tribune article from September 1884 mentioned that S E Goode was exhibiting her French Flat Folding-Bed at the 32nd Annual Illinois State Fair. This was likely the same bed she had applied for a patent for the year prior. She sent in her paperwork with the help of attorney George P. Barton of Chicago in November of 1883. It would be $35 in fees and twenty months of waiting, getting rejected, making adjustments, and resubmitting before she would finally receive the patent. By 1887, that furniture store was no longer on record. However, there was a furniture listing under Archie's name further down State Street. The Chicago Tribune had printed a distress for rent case from Bennett College against Sarah and her husband in October 1885, so that might have played a part.

Sarah's Later Years:

It’s unclear if Sarah worked on more inventions following her folding bed. If she did, they were never patented with the US Patent Office. However, her husband Archie’s invention of an automatic garbage box was praised by Chicago's Civic Federation and published in a local newspaper in 1895. The Paris Exposition of 1900 featured a section called The Exhibition of American Negroes, organized by Thomas J. Calloway and W. E. B. Du Bois, with the help of Henry E. Baker's patent research. Sarah E. Goode was one of four women identified in the exhibit's showcase of African American inventors.

Concept of the Folding Bed:

Most customers of Goode's furniture store were working-class people that lived in small apartments that couldn’t fit a lot of furniture, including beds.[3] As well as this, at the time of her invention, New York City passed a law that restricted buildings to be under 80 feet. Tenement buildings were also restricted to footprints of 25 feet by 100 feet.[4] As Goode heard this problem from her customers in Chicago, she set out to help Chicago apartment dwellers with limited space in their apartments.[5] Goode invented a folding bed that would become the precursor to the Murphy Bed - a hide-away bed. It was a cabinet bed which folded into a roll-top desk which had compartments for writing supplies and stationery.[6] Her goal for the innovation was to balance the weight of the folding of the bed so it could be easily lifted up and held in its place and also provided supplementary support to the center of the bed when it was unfolded.[7] In 1885, for her invention of the folding bed, Goode received a patent as the first African American in the United States.[8] The patent was for a folding bed that would go on to become the modern-day murphy bed.[9]

Early Patents Among African American Women:

Sarah E. Goode was the fourth known African American woman to receive a US patent. The first and second were Martha Jones of Amelia County, Virginia for her 1868 corn-husker upgrade and Mary Jones De Leon of Baltimore, Maryland for her 1873 cooking apparatus. Judy W. Reed’ s dough roller was the third, patented in 1884, one year before Sarah's cabinet bed. However, the first and second seemed to be Martha Jones of Ameilia County, VA for her 1868 corn-husker upgrade and Mary Jones De Leon of Baltimore, MD for her 1873 cooking apparatus. The Patent Office did not ask for distinction of race on patent applications, only for confirmation that the patentee was an American citizen.

Historic Barriers in the Patent Process:

Until a few decades prior to Sarah's invention, African Americans faced several barriers when applying for patents. Initially, some masters allowed enslaved people to apply for patents, but masters retained ownership of the patent process and profits. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision declared that African Americans, free or enslaved, were not citizens and thus could not hold office, vote, or secure patents. It is known at this time, though, that slaves working with mechanical equipment in the South often created contraptions to make their work more efficient. One example of this was when Benjamin T. Montgomery, a slave at Jefferson Davis’s estate, invented a boat propeller. Davis attempted to get it patented but was denied since Montgomery was not a citizen, and his invention could not be transferred to his master. After this, Davis recommended to the Confederate Congress that they pass a law allowing masters to patent their slave’s inventions and become the legally recognized patentees. Free persons of color, though, are reported to have had no formal legal barriers in getting approved federally for patents. However, the Black Codes were in effect in many states into the 1860s, and limited the ability of African Americans to own property. Following the Civil War, African Americans were given equal rights under the law and officially became recognized as citizens, allowing them to again secure patents. Historically, women faced unique challenges in the patent process as well. The 1790 federal patent process from the start allowed “persons”, not just men, to seek patents federally. However, many states limited the patent and property rights of women, creating an obstacle. But these limitations decreased starting in 1839 and over the following decades. Women at this time also faced limitations to higher education institutions that specialized in scientific training. Financial backing for women’s inventions was limited as well. Informal patent assistance, too, was often less available to women than it was to men.

Family Life:

Sarah married Archibald “Archie” Goode sometime between 1870 and 1880. Archie’s father had worked as a carpenter, and his brother Robert, who lived with the family in 1880, was a stair builder. Sarah and Archie had their first child Estella in 1873. Sarah and Archie’s other known children were named Inez, Harriet, Edna, and Sarah Goode. Sarah was her last known child, and she passed away at 5 months old in March of 1886. Her mother Harriet also passed away in 1886.

Legacy:

Sarah Elisabeth Goode died in Chicago on April 18, 1905.[10] In 2012, the Sarah E. Goods STEM Academy, a science and math based school! was opened in south Chicago to honor her contributions to the world. The school emphasizes on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to help prepare students in their future careers.[11] It is part of the Chicago Public Schools Urban Model High School (UMHS)[12]

Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy is also a P-TECH school which stands for Pathways in Technology Early College High School. Not only does P-TECH connect high school students to employment opportunities in promising fields, it also offers them the chance to take college courses while in high school and to earn credits toward both—a concept called dual enrollment.[13]

Popular Culture: In 2019, author Vivian Kirkfield published a children’s book about Sarah’s life as an inventor, titled “Sweet Dreams, Sarah.”