So I usually like to focus these articles on Black “firsts”, right? Like, there’s something historical in being the first to do this or that, but that’s not the only way to make history, in fact, today we are going to be talking about a Black “second” This is the story of Sarah E. Goode, the second Black woman to receive a United States Patent for her invention of the Cabinet Bed. The first Black woman to receive a patent was Judy W. Reed, who invented a dough kneeler and roller, but all sources seem to say that she couldn’t read or write, so she signed the patent with an “x”. This has led many historians to credit Sarah as the first Black woman to receive a patent, but its just not the case. That doesn’t make Sarah’s contributions any less valuable.
Sarah was born into slavery in 1855, in Toledo, Ohio. That same year white folks wrote and ratified the Fugitive Slave Act which required former enslaved Black folk that had found their freedom to be returned to their former state of captivity. Fortunately, the Civil War would start up and the Confederacy would be handily and embarrassingly defeated! The whole ordeal was finished by the time Sarah was ten years old, this guaranteed her freedom…kinda!
After the war, Sarah and her family moved to Chicago, Illinois. After some years she’d meet this dude named Archibald Goode, she called the homie ‘Archie’ which is cute as hell to me! The two would marry and have six children, although only three would make it to adulthood…modern medicine y’all, don’t take it for granted! Vaccinate them kids!
Anyway, Archie was a carpenter and an upholsterer, so Sarah got the idea to open up a furniture store where they’d sell all his whozits and whatsits! Customers would come into her store and buy all types of wooden stuff for their houses, BUT in 1885, a problem would start brewing in the East. New York started getting cramped as hell and in response, a law was passed that tenement buildings could only have a floor plan of like…not a lot of space. She heard how wack this made living conditions and got to work trying to fix the problem.
Sarah created a bed that could be folded up into a desk. The thing even had working ass drawers for extra space. Ya’ll heard of the Murphy bed? Well, the idea was built off of a Black woman from Chicago! On July 14, 1885, Sarah received her patent, she was the second Black woman to receive one but the first to sign her full name to it!
Sarah did get to see some of the profits from her invention but sadly passed away ten years later on April 8th, 1905. What’s super dope tho, is that in 2012 in the South Side of Chicago they named a high school after her, the Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy, the school is a public academy that focuses on the sciences and engineering to get young folks out there building the technology we gon need in the future. If that isn’t a lasting legacy I don’t know what is!
So, wow what a life! She saw a problem with no solution, something that wasn’t even her responsibility to fix she and addressed it, and made the world a better place for everyone. Ain’t that the story? You probably know some Black women in your life who do the same for you and you BETTER be thanking them! We kinda just expect Black women to fix stuff in this society and that’s a burden we should all be working to relieve them of! Anyway, today I’m saying Thank you, Sarah, from the bottom of my heart, Thank you!
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