Garrett Morgan used a white actor to sell his smoke hood

Garrett Morgan, a Black inventor in early-20th-century Cleveland, developed a genuinely effective early smoke and gas mask — the Safety Hood, patented in 1914 — that filtered smoke and toxic fumes well enough to let a wearer breathe safely in conditions that would otherwise be fatal. The obstacle to selling it wasn't the product's performance; it was that many white fire chiefs and potential buyers of the era refused to purchase or even seriously consider a safety product invented by a Black man, regardless of how well it worked.

Rather than abandon the product or the market, Morgan separated the invention's credibility from bias against its actual inventor. He hired a white actor to publicly pose as 'the inventor' during sales demonstrations, while Morgan himself, in disguise, played the role of an assistant — entering a tent filled with noxious smoke while wearing the Safety Hood and remaining inside for roughly thirty minutes before emerging unharmed in front of the crowd, with the actor presenting the results as his own invention's success.

Kept the same demonstration but had a white actor present it, so the product's real performance reached buyers who would have dismissed it otherwise.

Buyers refused to evaluate the product once they knew the inventor was Black.

The product's performance was genuinely good and demonstrable.

A white actor posing as inventor triggered a fair evaluation.

The real performance then persuaded buyers, leading to sales.

When bias blocks a fair hearing, separate the work's credibility from its source by using an unbiased messenger.

The staged demonstrations generated newspaper coverage and led directly to sales, including to the Cleveland Police Department, which knew of the device through that press coverage; two years later, when an explosion at the Cleveland Waterworks in 1916 trapped survivors in a gas-filled tunnel under Lake Erie, Morgan personally used his own Safety Hood to make four trips into the tunnel, helping rescue survivors and recover the bodies of others killed in the disaster — even then, initial national press coverage of the rescue omitted Morgan's role.