A multi-talented inventor, Granville Woods, dubbed the "black Edison," created the railroad telegraph, a device which transmitted messages between moving train via static electricity. This invention was an important advancement in railroad safety, reducing the number of train wrecks by enabling engineers to communicate with each other and monitor track and weather conditions. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 23, 1856, the son of Tailer and Martha Woods. At the age of ten, he had to end his public education to take a job in a machine shop. However, he continued to seek tutoring and private classes in the evening and borrowed books from the public library and friends to augment his studies.

Woods developed his mechanical skills by going to Missouri to work as a railroad engineer and fireman on the Iron Mountain Railroad. At the age of twenty, Woods began studying mechanical and electrical engineering, earning...