Late great engineers: Elijah McCoy - the name of engineering excellence

It’s unlikely anyone will ever agree on the linguistic roots of the expression that has become the byword for authenticity and quality. But there’s a persuasive case to be made for ‘the real McCoy’ originating in the world of engineering. Behind the phrase lie the achievements of African American engineer Elijah McCoy, remembered today as the inventor of ‘a new and useful’ improvement to a lubrication system that ensured locomotives rolled faster and more economically, while reducing maintenance downtime. By the end of the nineteenth century, the McCoy Lubricator was, according to the Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, a standard technology on most North American railroads, as well as in other heavy engineering applications such as shipping and mining.

While the greater share of McCoy’s 57 patents – at the time a record for the most held by an African American – were connected to lubricating systems, his powers of innovation were also to make their mark on domestic life in the form of the folding ‘ironing table’ (devised in response to his wife’s complaints over having to iron clothes on uneven surfaces), as well as the lawn sprinkler, which has led to McCoy’s occasional recognition as the ‘Father of Turtle-Shaped Irrigation Systems’. When it comes to the social lubrication of alcohol, his name was further honoured by the Old Taylor Bourbon brand that highlighted its authenticity with the tag ‘the real McCoy’, before arguably undermining the engineer’s professional reputation with: ‘the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name’.