Sarah Elisabeth Goode was born into slavery as Sarah Elisabeth Jacobs in 1855 in Toledo, Ohio, the same year the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted. Sarah did not have a formal education and learned a trade from her father. She received her freedom at the end of the Civil War and moved to Chicago, where she met and married Archibald Goode, a carpenter. Together, in 1885, Sarah and her husband operated a furniture store at 513 State Street in Chicago. Most customers of Goode’s furniture store were working-class people who lived in small apartments that couldn’t fit a lot of furniture, including beds.
At the time of her invention, housing in New York City was expanding upwards. It became restricted in 1885 when New York City passed a law that restricted buildings to be under 80 feet, as to combat commercial buildings becoming too tall. Tenement buildings usually had a footprint of 25 feet by 100 feet. In these environments, every square foot was important, and saving space was necessary. Goode heard of this problem from customers of her furniture store in Chicago, and she set out to help Chicago apartment dwellers with limited space in their apartments, and she had a solution.
Sarah Elisabeth Goode invented a folding cabinet bed which helped people who lived in tight housing to efficiently utilize their limited living space. Sarah worked out a design for a bed that could be used for sleeping during the night but converted into a roll top desk during the day. Her goal was to balance the weight of the folding of the bed so it could be easily lifted up and held in its place and also provide supplementary support to the center of the bed when it was unfolded. The bed, complete with mattress and spring support, was attached by hinges and could be raised or lowered as needed.
Because it was a roll top it also provided storage for other writing utensils and stationery items. Given that her father and her husband were carpenters, they were skilled enough to make Goode’s conception a reality. On July 14, 1885, Sarah E. Goode, became the second Black woman receive a United States patent, after Judy W. Reed (for a dough kneader and roller), for her invention, the cabinet bed. Reed had used her mark (an X) to sign the patent and not her signature. So technically Sarah Elisabeth Goode became the first African-American woman to obtain a United States patent. Today we have the Murphy bed and the hide-away bed/couch as a result.
Her idea filled a void in the lives of many. It was practical and many people appreciated it. Until a few decades prior to Sarah’s invention, African Americans faced several barriers when applying for patents. Initially, some masters allowed enslaved people to apply for patents, but masters retained ownership of the patent process and profits. Originally free persons of color were said to have no federal obstacles to securing patents. However, in 1857, the Dred Scott decision declared that African Americans, free or enslaved, were not citizens and thus could not hold office, vote, or secure patents. The Black Codes were also in effect in many states into the 1860s and limited the ability of African Americans to own property and patents.
Following the Civil War, Black Americans were given equal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and officially became recognized as citizens, allowing them to again secure patents. Historically, women faced challenges in the patent process as well. The 1790 federal patent process allowed “persons”, not just men, to seek patents federally. However, many states limited the patent and property rights of women, creating an obstacle. These limitations decreased starting in 1839 and over the following decades. Goode’s invention received a certain amount of attention, but there is no information about how widespread it was and the degree to which it was ever mass produced It’s unclear if Sarah worked on more inventions following her folding bed. She died in Chicago April 8, 1905.