Garrett MorganGarrett Augustus Morgan was born on March 4, 1877, in Paris, Kentucky, the seventh of eleven children of Sydney and Elizabeth Morgan. His parents had previously been slaves, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. At the age of 14, Morgan decided to travel north to Ohio in hopes of receiving better educational opportunities. There were better opportunities for blacks in the northern part of the country in those days. However, Morgan's formal education never went beyond elementary school. He moved to Cincinnati and then Cleveland, working as a handyman to make ends meet. In Cleveland he learned the inner workings of the sewing machine and in 1907 opened his own sewing machine shop, where he sold new machines and repaired old ones. In 1908 Morgan married Mary Anne Hassek with whom he later had three children. In 1909, Morgan opened a tailoring shop, selling coats, suits and suits. While working in this shop he made a discovery that led to his first invention. He noticed that the needle of a sewing machine moved with such high speed that its friction often burned the thread of woolen fabrics. He then set out to develop a liquid that would be a useful polish for the needle, reducing friction. Once, when his wife called him to dinner, he wiped the liquid from his hands on a piece of pony hair cloth. When he returned to his workshop, he saw that the fabric fibers were now straight. He conceived that the fluid had actually straightened the fibers. To confirm his theory, he decided to apply some of the fluid to the fur of a neighbor's dog. The fluid stretched the dog's fur so much that the neighbor, not recognizing his own pet, chased the animal away. Morgan then decided to test the fluid on himself, first testing on small portions of hair and finally on his entire head. He was successful and invented the first human hair straightener. This invention helped a lot on a commercial level. Many media today feature people with straightened hair. This may not have been possible if Garrett Morgan had not made the contributions he has made. He marketed the product under the name GA Morgan Hair Refining Cream and sold it through his GA Morgan Refining Company, which became a highly successful business..