Andrew Jackson Beard: Former Slave Helped Revolutionize Railroad Industry

Andrew Jackson Beard was an African American inventor, who introduced five improvements to the automatic railroad car coupler in 1897 and 1899 and was inducted posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio in 2006 for this achievement. These are his notable achievements and safety legacy but let’s learn more about the man and his life. Andrew Jackson Beard was an African American inventor, who introduced five improvements to the automatic railroad car coupler in 1897 and 1899. (PUBLIC DOMAIN) Andrew Jackson Beard was born to William and Martha Harris Beard on May 29, 1849, in Woodland, Alabama. He had two brothers and five sisters. He spent the first 15 years of his life as a slave on a small plantation in East Lake, Alabama. Prior to the end of the Civil War, Beard was emancipated and released from bondage. A year later, he married Edia Beard, and they had three sons. He became a farmer and sharecropper on a farm in Pinson, Alabama. He later purchased an 80-acre farm near Center Point, Alabama. After making a very long three-week trip to Montgomery, Alabama to sell some bushels of apples off an ox cart, he made the...