Inventor database
Verified
Sarah E. Goode
Among the first Black women to receive a US patent
At a glance
- Inventor
- Sarah E. Goode
- Life
- c. 1855–1905
- Birthplace
- Toledo, Ohio
- Country
- United States
- Region
- United States
- Era
- 1800s
- Fields
- Everyday Life
- Evidence
- Verified
- Records
- 1 in this archive
What they did
Born into slavery and later a Chicago furniture-store owner, Goode patented a cabinet bed: a folding desk that converted into a bed.
Historical context
Working families in rapidly industrialising Chicago lived in tenement rooms where a bed consumed most of the floor space.
The legacy
Her convertible-furniture principle runs straight through to the Murphy bed and today's small-space furniture industry.
The evidence
US Patent 322,177 — Cabinet-bed
Primary record
Documentation strength
- 1
- Sources
- 1
- Primary
- 1
- Publishers
Calculated from the sources actually attached to this record — the closer a source sits to the original document, the more it counts. It is never asserted by hand.