Some say that one man’s industrial invention gave rise to the slang idiom “the real McCoy,” a turn of phrase denoting quality and authenticity. Although most commonly accepted accounts of the phrase state otherwise, the true origin of the expression matters little: A uniquely American tale can to be told from one of the popular interpretations.
Elijah McCoy was a prolific inventor with prodigious mind, patenting an impressive array of devices, approximately 50 to 75 total (sources range between the two figures). Indeed, McCoy was a pivotal player in the development of lubricating systems for the industry and transportation systems of the 1870s, as the economy of coal, corn, wheat, and railroad shipping exponentially matured in America.
The Life of Elijah McCoy
Born in Canada in either 1843 or 1844 (legitimate sources quote different years, though May 2, 1944 is the most common date offered), McCoy was the son of George and Mildred Goins McCoy who were reportedly “runaway slaves from Kentucky.”Young Elijah showed an early interest in machines. At 16, with the assistance of his parents, he evidently visited Edinburgh, Scotland, to complete an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering.
By all accounts he moved to the United States from Colchester, Ontario (less than 50 miles from the Michigan border), either close to the conclusion of or shortly after the end of the Civil War. By 1870, he was residing in Ypsilanti, Michigan, about 40 miles west of Detroit. He might have owned a machine repair shop there.
The First and Foremost Patent in 1872
In an area of Ypsilanti known as “Depot Town,” he began experiments which led to the development of a novel lubricating system for steam engines.
Before McCoy, heavy machinery of all sorts had to be stopped periodically in order to be lubricated. There is no firsthand memoir or autobiography handy to lean on to better know McCoy’s mind; but presumably he considered the system in place a waste of time, manpower, and capital. There had to be a better method than to shut off the locomotive engines and lubricate them by hand.
McCoy patented a self-lubricating system in 1872. His creation consisted of a “drip cup” holding a supply of oil which was fed through a valve to the moving parts of the machinery. He acquired his first patent on July 23, 1872. United States Patent No. 129,843 was an instantaneous success; railroad administrators quickly discovered that it saved money, muscle, and precious hours, and perhaps would even prevent larger locomotive problems. After the turn of the century, an official of the U.S. Patent Office stated that McCoy was “regarded as the pioneer in the art of steadily supplying oil to machinery in intermittent drops from a cup so as to avoid the necessity for stopping the machine to oil it.”
In the next few years, McCoy was granted at least six other patents. According to a story about McCoy in The Times Record in 1973, “often he sold the rights to them to raise enough capital to continue his experimentation.”
Sometime around 1882, McCoy moved to Detroit, one of the manufacturing and industrial hubs of the country, and according to available patent archives, in the next 40 plus years was granted an average of a patent a year.
In 1920, he organized and registered his own company, the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company, making and selling many of his own devices. In that same year, he received a patent for an improved air brake lubricator.
The Legacy of McCoy
McCoy’s first and perhaps finest invention—the renowned lubricating cup—was in use, according to The Courier-Journal in 1972, “for many years on stationary and locomotive machinery in the West, including the great railway locomotives, the boiler engines of the steamers on the Great Lakes, on transatlantic steamships, and in many of the country’s leading factories.” The Louisville newspaper also noted in the article that McCoy’s lubricating cups were famous “as a necessary equipment on all up-to-date machinery.”The Origins of a Colloquialism
In an age when imitations were prevalent, railroad engineers would request “the real McCoy” to ensure that they are purchasing the genuine piece. However, according to the lion’s share of historians, the real McCoy was Charles “Kid” McCoy (1872–1940), an Indiana-born prize fighter and barroom slugger who first rose to prominence in the 1890s. As the story has been transmitted, one day, McCoy was teased by a heckler in a saloon who questioned the man’s identity and in doing so his very toughness. The heckler told McCoy if he was who he claimed to be, then he should put up his fists and prove it. In hindsight, the heckler made an asinine comment. McCoy clocked the man in the jaw, and he saw stars and perhaps even a few swirling constellations. When the heckler came to his senses, his first few words allegedly were: “That’s the real McCoy all right!”
In the 1960s, historians began to circulate an alternative version to the popular Kid McCoy yarn, professing to have found the expression’s true derivative in the life of the late 19th-century inventor Elijah McCoy.
It is difficult to declare with absolute certainly who “the real McCoy” is. Nonetheless, McCoy’s lubricators and his other various mechanical devices also came to be known in certain circles as “the real McCoy,” meaning the genuine article.
Linguistics and etymology out of the way, McCoy made major contributions to American life and the term should be considered an utmost compliment to the memory and legacy of this astute inventor.
