growing list of patents and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company, which sold hair care products, including his patented hair straightening cream, a hair coloring, and a hair straightening comb invented by Morgan. He received a patent for his smoke hood design in 1914, the year he launched the National Safety Device Company. It is unknown whether the smoke hood brought him any commercial success. In 1916, Morgan rescued workers trapped in a water intake tunnel beneath Lake Erie, using a hood fashioned to protect his eyes from smoke and featuring a series of air tubes that hung near the ground to draw clean air beneath the rising smoke. Later in life he developed glaucoma and by 1943 was functionally blind. He had poor health the rest of his life, but continued to work on his inventions. One of his last was a self-extinguishing cigarette, which used a small plastic pellet filled with water placed just before the filter. He died on July 27, 1963, at age 86 and was buried at the Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Products and inventions Hair care products Morgan conducted experiments with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish that prevented the needle from burning fabric as it sewed. In 1905, Morgan accidentally discovered that the liquid could also straighten hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. He also made a black hair oil dye and invented a curved-tooth comb for hair straightening in 1910. Smoke hood Garrett Morgan invented a safety hood smoke protection device after seeing firefighters struggling to withstand the suffocating smoke they encountered in the line of duty. His device used a moist sponge to filter out smoke and cool the air. It also took advantage of the way smoke and fumes tend to rise to higher positions while leaving a layer of more breathable air below, by using an air intake tube that dangled near the floor. The hood used a series of tubes to draw clean air of the lowest level the tubes could extend to. Smoke, being hotter than the air around it, rises, and by drawing air from the ground, the Safety Hood provided the user with a way to perform emergency respiration. He filed for a patent on the device in 1912, and founded a company called