Elijah McCoy was born in 1844 in Ontario to formerly-enslaved parents from Kentucky. They saved enough to send him to Scotland to study mechanical #engineering. When he returned and couldn't get work in his field, he took a job as a train oilman and invented a method of automatic lubrication that eliminated the frequent stops trains had to make to oil up axles & bearings. Railroad companies asking for his product rather than copycat devices spawned the phrase "the real McCoy." #BlackHistoryMonth