Celebrate Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month
Famous African American Inventors Matching Game
Use the following matching game to help your students
learn about famous African American inventors.
Garrett Morgan
He invented the traffic light and gas
mask.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
He was the first doctor to successfully
perform open heart surgery.
Granville T. Woods
He invented the train telegraph which
allowed messages to be sent between
moving trains and train stations.
Norbet Rillieux
He designed a machine for turning
sugarcane into sugar, which made sugar
quicker and safer than earlier methods.
George Washington Carver
He was an American scientist, educator,
and former slave who developed
hundreds of products from peanuts,
sweet potatoes, pecans, and soybeans.
His discoveries greatly improved the
agricultural output and the health of
Southern farmers. Some of the products
he invented include adhesives, dyes, and
pigments. He is also credited with the
invention of peanut butter.
Jan Matzeliger
He invented the shoe-lasting machine,
which would attach (“last”) the top part
of the shoe to the bottom, his invention
made shoes faster and cheaper to make.
Dr. Lloyd Augustus Hall
Dr. Patricia Cowings
He invented food preservatives to keep
food from spoiling. He also created a
method to sterilize food and medical
supplies.
She invented medicine to stop motion
sickness.
Elijah McCoy
Mark Dean
He invented a device to automatically oil
parts of train. This made train travel
He developed a way to connect printers,
easier because trains didn’t have to stop
scanners, and other devices into personal
every few miles to get oiled. His device
computers; which greatly improved the
worked so well that people only wanted
desktop computer abilities.
“The Real McCoy” (thus the origin of this
expression).
Dr. Charles Drew
Frederick M. Jones
He discovered how to store blood,
making blood banks more effective. He
He invented the “Thermo King” that
was director of the first American Red
chilled the inside of trucks, allowing food
Cross Blood Bank. He was also the first
to be shipped across the country.
black surgeon to serve on the American
Board of Surgery.
Garrett Morgan
Granville T. Woods
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
Norbet Rillieux
George Washington Carver
Jan Matzeliger
Dr. Lloyd Augustus Hall
Dr. Patricia Cowings
Mark Dean
Elijah McCoy
Frederick M. Jones
Dr. Charles Drew