In 1885, Sarah Elisabeth Goode was awarded a patent for a bed that folded into a roll-top desk, an invention she designed to save space in cramped Chicago apartments.
U.S. Patent OfficeThe folding cabinet bed invented by Sarah Goode was one of the first patents granted to a Black woman.
A dough kneader, a folding bed, and a corn husking machine. These were among the first inventions patented by Black women in the years following the Civil War. Sarah Goode was one of those inventors.
Little is known about Goode’s early life, but some records suggest that she was born into slavery. In 1885, she became one of the first Black women to receive a U.S. patent.
Within a few years of the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, Black women began applying for patents to receive credit for their inventions. And in 1883, Sarah Goode submitted an application for her folding bed, a precursor to the Murphy bed that was invented in the early 20th century.
Who Was Sarah Goode?
Few records exist from Sarah Goode’s earliest years. She was potentially born into slavery in 1855, one of seven children of Oliver and Harriet Jacobs. Goode’s father was a carpenter, and by the time Goode was five, her family was living in Toledo, Ohio.
As an adult, Goode moved to Chicago, where she met Archibald Goode. A carpenter like her father, Archibald was also an inventor. He listed his other talents as upholstering and stair building.
Sarah and Archibald married by 1880 and opened a furniture store.
Located in the bustling neighborhood just north of the Chicago River, the Goodes’ furniture store served Chicago residents who lived in small apartments. This inspired Sarah Goode to invent her folding bed.
Inventing The Folding Cabinet Bed
Sarah Goode ran a furniture store in downtown Chicago that served working-class customers. Many lived in tenement-style apartments that couldn’t fit a bed. So Goode created a folding bed, the precursor to the Murphy Bed.
The minuscule apartments of 1880s Chicago and New York averaged around 250 square feet. When entire families squeezed in, they had little space for furniture.
As Chicago’s population boomed in the years after the 1871 fire, families squeezed into increasingly small apartments.
Running the furniture store gave Sarah Goode an idea for a space-saving invention. In order to help working-class families who lived in small apartments, she created a folding bed.
Goode invented the folding cabinet bed to help her customers maximize their living space. Users could lift and fold the bed, tucking it away when not in use. What’s more, the unfolded bed featured supports that kept it sturdy at night.
In her patent application, Sarah Goode described the invention as “adapted to be folded together when not in use, so as to occupy less space, and made generally to resemble some article of furniture when so folded.”
The U.S. Patent and Trade Office approved Goode’s patent in 1885.
Using The Folding Cabinet Bed
How were customers supposed to use Sarah Goode’s folding cabinet bed?
Users would open the cabinet doors and unfold the bed hidden within. Opening a folded flap on either side of the center section revealed a full-length bed perpendicular to the cabinet.
The folding cabinet bed served multiple purposes. In addition to offering more floor space during the day, the roll-top desk featured spaces for stationary and pens. As Goode explained in her application, the desk was “suitable for office or general use” but also acted as a counterbalance to the weight of the bed.
U.S. Patent OfficeSarah Goode’s folding cabinet hid a bed inside a roll-top desk.
By combining a bed and a desk, Goode’s invention offered customers two pieces of furniture for the space of one.
“Folded together, the bed has all the appearance of an ordinary office desk,” Goode’s patent application explained. “The entire desk, being attached to and forming a part of the head section of the bed, does not in any way interfere with the folding or unfolding of the bed, and by the novel construction thereof the contents of the desk will be very little deranged by the turning necessary in unfolding the bed.”
Black Women Inventors In The 1880s
Sarah Goode was one of several Black women who received patents in the 1880s. The year after Goode submitted the patent application for her folding cabinet bed, Judy Reed received a patent for her dough kneader. The invention kneaded and rolled dough more evenly than earlier inventions.
Reed used her initials on the patent application, possibly to obscure her gender.
In 1888, Miriam Benjamin patented her design for a chair that signaled attendants. Someone sitting in the chair could simply press a button to raise a flag on the chair and sound a gong.
Benjamin’s patent made headlines as a useful invention. The U.S. House of Representatives installed a system based on Benjamin’s chair in the 1890s so that Congressmen could signal pages. And Benjamin’s system would later inspire the flight attendant signals on airplanes.
Like Goode, Benjamin had a career outside of her inventions. She attended Howard University and worked as a teacher in Washington, D.C. public schools. In 1917, she patented a second invention that delivered medication through shoe inserts.
U.S. Patent OfficeThe Murphy bed, patented in the early 20th century, was first called “The Disappearing Bed.”
But who was the first Black woman to receive a patent? Virginian Martha Jones was awarded a patent in 1868 for her machine to husk and shell corn. In addition to stripping the kernels from the corn cob, Jones’ invention cut up the husks, which could be used as animal feed or to fill mattresses.
The U.S. patent office did not require inventors to list their race or gender on 19th-century patent applications. And because the government excluded Black Americans from exercising their rights, white slave owners sometimes claimed the inventions of Black enslaved inventors as their own.
The Legacy Of Sarah Goode’s Folding Cabinet Bed
It’s unclear whether Sarah Goode ever sold her folding cabinet bed at her furniture store. However, she and her husband did showcase their inventions at state fairs, and her patent was even featured at the Paris Exposition of 1900.
Sarah Goode earned a patent for her folding cabinet bed more than two decades before William Murphy would patent the Murphy bed. The folding cabinet bed and the Murphy bed served a similar function to the Japanese futon, which became popular in the U.S. in the 1970s.
Wikimedia CommonsUnlike Sarah Goode’s folding bed, which transformed into a functional desk, the Murphy bed retracted into the wall.
By the time Murphy patented his bed, Goode had died. She passed away on April 18, 1905, and was buried in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery. In 2012, Chicago Public Schools opened the Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy to celebrate Goode’s achievements as a Black woman inventor.
Sarah Goode was just one of many Black inventors. Next, learn about the most influential Black inventors, and then learn about Black millionaire and entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker.
