The not-so-real McCoy

The African-American inventor Elijah McCoy (1843-1929) is frequently presented in websites, childrens books, and newspaper articles as having revolutionized the industrial world with an invention that, supposedly for the first time, allowed steam locomotives and factory machinery to be automatically and continuously lubricated while in operation. Many publications go so far as to say his superior creations gave rise to the popular phrase "Real McCoy." The uncritical and widespread acceptance of these myths led to McCoy's induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. The Hall's website regurgitated the same old tale:

Elijah McCoy received his first patent for an automatic lubricating device in 1872. Previously, engines had to be stopped before necessary lubrication could be applied. McCoy's invention allowed engines to be lubricated while they ran, saving precious time and money. [...] His reputation spread, and users of heavy equipment were wary of buying cheap substitutes. As a result, they often asked for "the real McCoy," a phrase that still exists in today's vocabulary.

National Inventors Hall of Fame, Elijah McCoy inventor profile, accessed 5 June 2002

Ironically, the above version of history is anything but "real." The purpose of this page is to correct it.

Automatic lubrication of machine bearings

In spite of what popular pseudohistory has to say, the practice of providing a self-acting, continuous feed of lubricant to moving machine parts began long before Elijah McCoy came along. The most generally used of the early lubricators was the oil cup — a small receptacle mounted over a bearing and provided with a wick, adjustable valve, or other means for regulating the drip rate of the oil. An 1848 Scientific American article contains a brief description of a simple and common oil cup, from which a capillary wick delivered the oil drop by drop until the oil ran out. More sophisticated lubrication systems — such as one introduced by the British firm of Sharp Brothers & Co in about 1850 [1] — distributed a steady supply of oil to multiple moving parts via a network of pipes, and featured an array of regulators to control the rate of oil flow to each bearing.

Automatic lubrication of steam engines

The internal working parts (pistons, cylinders, valves) of a steam engine needed special lubricators that would work well when exposed to the presence and pressure of steam.[2] It was in this area that Elijah McCoy specialized, although here, too, he did not invent the first or most influential devices. Some automatic steam engine oilers that preceded McCoy's first invention (1872) by several years are described below.

• 1860: the displacement lubricator

English engineer John Ramsbottom introduced the first commercial displacement lubricator, which he patented in 1860.[3] Steam entering the lubricator condensed into drops of water which sank beneath the oil (or any other light lubricant), causing the "displaced" oil to gradually overflow into a pipe leading to the engine cylinders.

The delivery of the lubricant was automatic, effected entirely by the action of steam. No manual intervention was required until, of course, the oil supply ran out, at which time someone would drain the vessel of accumulated water and refill it with oil.

"This Invention is applicable in lubricating the slide valves, pistons, and cylinders of steam engines, steam hammers, rivetting machines, and other machines actuated by steam.... When the engine is at work the action of the steam displaces a little of the oil or other lubricating material from the orifice of the vessel, and the condensed steam or water takes the place of the lubricating material thus displaced; the water being of a greater specific gravity than the lubricating material, descends in the vessel and displaces a corresponding quantity of the lubricating material, which is thus raised to the orifice and carried off as before by the action of the steam; this action continues as long as the engine is at work, or until all the lubricating material has been displaced by the water."

— John Ramsbottom, British Patent No. 2460 of 1860 (10 October 1860).

• 1862: the Roscoe displacement lubricator

A popular lubricator featuring a regulator valve to set the feed rate of the lubricant was patented in 1862 by James Roscoe, a district superintendent for England's Midland Railway. In 1870, when McCoy had yet to introduce his first lubricator, the Society of Engineers in London reported that Roscoe's lubricator was already being used on "some thirty lines of railway in Great Britain and on a great number of railways on the [European] Continent, and in America and Australia." It was also employed on "many stationary and marine engines."

Roscoe displacement lubricator patented 5 May 1862 (British, No.1337)

Advertisement in The English Mechanic, 24 November 1865 "The Roscoe lubricator, which was invented in 1862, was certainly one of the most successful and widely applied of any form of cylinder lubricator, and held its own to the exclusion of others for some twenty-five years, until it gradually began to be superseded from about 1887 by the 'sight-feed' type.[4] Even in the early 'seventies' practically every Midland engine was fitted with Roscoe lubricators." — E. L. Ahrons, 1922, Lubrication of Locomotives, p.83

• 1860-1870: other lubricators

The "self-acting" steam engine lubricators invented and brought into use before McCoy entered the field were certainly not limited to those described above. A paper published by the Society of Engineers in 1870 highlights a sample of other such devices.

• 1872: McCoy jumps on the bandwagon

Despite popular myths to the contrary, McCoy's first (and now, most hyped) invention was hardly a radical new form of technology. It appears to have been derived from a type of displacement lubricator originated by John Sees of Philadelphia several years earlier.[5]

• The hydrostatic lubricator

Portia James, author of The Real McCoy: African American Invention and Innovation, 1619-1930, inaccurately credits McCoy with inventing the hydrostatic lubricator, which uses hydrostatic pressure to discharge its oil.[6] The earliest hydrostatic lubricator patent I could locate in the U.S. patent database was issued to Nicholas Seibert in February 1871 (No. 111881); however, an 1895 Locomotive Engineering article[7] dates the first use of such a device to 1870. Either way, its origin predates all of McCoy's patents.

"Real McCoy"

Of the biographical sketches of Elijah McCoy one finds in books and on the Internet, a good many aim more for inspiration than historical accuracy and rely more on wishful thinking than evidence. The most fanciful writers fantasize that Elijah was the original Real McCoy, who gave rise to the expression that means "the genuine article." According to the fantasy, locomotive and factory machine operators demanded "real" McCoy products, preferring them to the pieces of junk hawked by less able competitors who could do no better than copy McCoy's creations. While the details of the story vary somewhat depending on the source, one thing that remains constant is a lack of evidence to back it all up. Never do the storytellers offer any concrete information that establishes a credible link between Elijah McCoy and the "Real" nickname. Extreme claims about McCoy lubricators dominating the market or becoming the industry-wide standard go unsubstantiated as well; such McCoy-centric historical views do not mesh with other, more reliable accounts of lubricator development.[8]

Slang dictionaries and other linguistic publications do not support the notion of Elijah McCoy being the "real" one.[9] Most of them, after discussing one or more competing theories about how the phrase began (involving either a famous boxer, a clan chieftain, a cattle baron, a Prohibition-era rumrunner, a family feud, pure heroin from Macao, or an old Irish ballad) reach a conclusion similar to that of the Oxford English Dictionary, which says "Its origin remains uncertain."

Although the ultimate source of Real McCoy may never be known, we can at least trace back early forms of the expression to Scotland years before Elijah McCoy began plying his trade. The Scottish National Dictionary presents an example from 1856: "A drappie o' the real McKay," meaning a drop of genuine Scotch whiskey.[10] The dictionary also says, "The phrase ['real Mackay'] was adopted as an advertising slogan by Messrs. G. Mackay and Co., whisky distillers of Edinburgh, in 1870 and must have been already current by that date." Variant spellings included Mackay, McCoy, and McKie (all equivalent to the Gaelic MacAoidh), with real McCoy eventually becoming the standard American form. Whether one or more specific persons named McCoy helped popularize the phrase or influence its spelling remains speculative.

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Notes

Sources

• Peter Jensen. "Friction in Steam Cylinders". Transactions / Society of Engineers, 7 March 1870 (London, England):17-35.
• Peter W. Skellon. Steam Locomotive Lubrication: its development and practice (Barrow-in-Furness: MIC Publications, 1997)
• Patent database, US Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html)
• E. L. Ahrons. Lubrication of Locomotives. (London: The Locomotive publishing co., ltd., 1922)
• "Lubrication of Cylinders." The American Engineer, 7 Nov 1884, p.183-186.
• George Royal. "Lubricators." Locomotive Engineering, March 1895, p.176-177.
• "Lubrication by Continuous Feeding." The Manufacturer and Builder., 8:1 (January 1876), p.5.
• Vaughan Pendred. The Railway Locomotive: what it is and why it is what it is. (London: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd, 1908):282-284.
• F.A.P Barnard & Arnold Guyot (eds.) "Lubricators." Johnson's New Universal Cyclopedia: a scientific and popular treasury of useful knowledge 1875-1878. p.139-140.
• "The Displacement Lubricator." The English Mechanic, 22 Sept 1865, p.309.
• J.E. Lighter, ed. Random House historical dictionary of American slang (New York: Random House, 1994-, 1st ed.)
• Stuart Berg Flexner. I hear America talking: an illustrated treasury of American words and phrases (New York : Van Nostrand Reinhold, c1976)
• John Ayto. The Oxford dictionary of slang (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Robert L. Chapman, with Barbara Ann Kipfer. Dictionary of American slang, 3rd ed. (New York : HarperCollins, c1995.)
• Christine Ammer. The American Heritage dictionary of idioms. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, c1997)
• J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. The Oxford English dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, 2nd ed.)
• William Grant, ed. Scottish National Dictionary (Edinburgh: The Scottish National Dictionary Association limited, 1931-75)

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