First African American Woman Patent Holder & Space-Saving Furniture Pioneer
1855 – April 8, 1905
🇺🇸 United StatesSarah Elisabeth Jacobs was born in 1855 in Toledo, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved until just a few years earlier. She entered the world at a pivotal moment in American history—slavery still existed in the South, the Civil War was less than a decade away, and African Americans faced severe discrimination throughout the nation. Despite these formidable obstacles, Sarah would grow up to become the first African American woman to receive a United States patent, breaking barriers in business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Growing up in post-slavery Ohio, Sarah received more education than most African American children of her era, though the details of her schooling remain scarce in historical records. What is clear is that she developed skills in carpentry, furniture making, and business—highly unusual for any woman of that era, and especially remarkable for a Black woman facing dual discrimination based on both race and gender.
At some point in her young adulthood, Sarah married Archibald Goode, a carpenter and stair builder. The couple moved to Chicago, Illinois, where African Americans from across the country were migrating in search of opportunity and escape from the violent oppression of the South. Chicago in the 1870s and 1880s was a rapidly growing industrial city, recovering from the devastating Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and experiencing a building boom that created opportunities for skilled tradespeople.
Sarah and Archibald Goode opened a furniture store on Chicago's South Side, serving a clientele that included many working-class residents living in the small apartments that were typical of urban housing in the 1880s. This was not a simple retail operation; the Goodes created custom furniture pieces, repaired existing furniture, and provided interior design consultation to their customers.
For Sarah Goode to operate a business at all was remarkable. In the 1880s, married women in many states still faced legal restrictions on owning property or running businesses without their husbands' permission. For a Black woman to own and operate a furniture business was almost unheard of. Yet Sarah Goode not only ran her business successfully—she observed her customers' needs carefully and identified a significant problem that she was uniquely positioned to solve.
Chicago's rapid urbanization had created a housing crisis. Working-class families, including many African American migrants from the South, crowded into small apartments with limited square footage. In these cramped living spaces, a full-sized bed could take up most of the room, leaving little space for daily activities. Customers regularly came to Goode's furniture store looking for solutions to this space problem, asking for furniture that could serve multiple purposes and fit into their tiny apartments.
Sarah Goode recognized that the solution required more than just selling smaller furniture. What people needed was furniture that could transform—pieces that served one function during the day and another at night. Drawing on her carpentry skills and her understanding of her customers' needs, she began designing a revolutionary piece of furniture that would change how people thought about small-space living.
Sarah Goode's folding cabinet bed was an ingenious multi-functional piece of furniture that addressed the space constraints of urban living with elegant simplicity. The design was remarkably sophisticated: when folded up, the bed looked like an ordinary desk or cabinet, complete with a writing surface and compartments for storage. When needed for sleeping, the piece could be unfolded to reveal a full-sized bed with a comfortable sleeping surface.
The cabinet bed wasn't just a bed that folded away; it was a complete space-saving system. In its cabinet form, it featured multiple compartments where users could store bedding, linens, stationery, and personal items. The desk surface could be used for writing, eating meals, or working. Essentially, Goode had created a piece of furniture that replaced three separate items—a bed, a desk, and a storage cabinet—with a single transformable unit.
The mechanics of the folding mechanism required careful engineering. The bed had to be stable and secure when in use but also capable of being easily folded by a single person. The hinges, supports, and locking mechanisms all had to be precisely designed and constructed to ensure safety and durability. Goode's carpentry background and practical experience building furniture proved invaluable in creating a design that was both innovative and buildable.
What made Goode's invention particularly revolutionary was its practicality. This wasn't a luxury item for the wealthy; it was a practical solution for working people living in small spaces. The cabinet bed addressed a real need experienced by thousands of urban dwellers, and it did so at a price point that her working-class customers could afford.
On July 14, 1885, Sarah E. Goode received United States Patent Number 322,177 for her "Cabinet-Bed." This patent made her the first African American woman to receive a U.S. patent, a historic achievement that shattered multiple barriers simultaneously. Just twenty years after the end of slavery, when many states still legally restricted Black people's civil rights and when women's legal rights remained severely limited, a Black woman had been recognized by the federal government as the inventor of a novel and useful device.
The significance of this achievement cannot be overstated. The patent system represented official governmental recognition of innovation and intellectual property. For an African American woman to navigate this system successfully in 1885 required not only ingenuity but also business acumen, legal knowledge, and perseverance in the face of systemic discrimination. Goode had to file formal patent applications, create technical drawings, write detailed descriptions of her invention, and possibly defend her claim to originality—all while managing her business and facing the double discrimination of racism and sexism.
The patent document itself provides fascinating insight into Goode's invention. It includes detailed technical drawings showing the bed in both its cabinet form and its extended bed form, along with precise descriptions of the folding mechanism, the desk surface, and the storage compartments. The level of technical detail demonstrates Goode's thorough understanding of both furniture construction and the patent process.
Receiving the patent gave Goode legal protection for her invention and the exclusive right to manufacture and sell cabinet beds based on her design. This intellectual property right was a valuable business asset that could be licensed to manufacturers or used to establish her own production. The patent represented not just recognition but also economic potential—the possibility of transforming her single furniture store into a larger manufacturing operation.
Sarah Goode's folding cabinet bed was the direct precursor to the Murphy bed, which would be patented by William Lawrence Murphy in 1900, fifteen years after Goode's patent. Murphy beds—beds that fold up into a wall or cabinet—became enormously popular in the 20th century and remain common today in studio apartments, tiny homes, and small spaces worldwide. While Murphy's later patent added refinements and different mechanisms, the core concept of a bed that folds away into furniture or a wall to save space originated with innovators like Sarah Goode.
Modern space-saving furniture—transforming tables, expandable sofas, wall beds, modular storage systems—all owe a debt to Goode's pioneering work. She recognized that urban living required furniture to be flexible and multi-functional, a principle that has become even more relevant as cities grow denser and housing costs push people into ever-smaller living spaces. Today's tiny house movement, micro-apartment designs, and space-efficient furniture all reflect the same insight that drove Goode's innovation: that furniture must adapt to limited space rather than demanding unlimited room.
Beyond the specific invention, Sarah Goode's patent represented a broader breakthrough. She proved that African American women could innovate, create, and receive recognition for their intellectual achievements. In an era when racist pseudoscience claimed that Black people were intellectually inferior and when women were considered incapable of mechanical or scientific thought, Goode's patent stood as powerful counter-evidence. Her achievement paved the way for other African American women inventors who would follow.
After receiving her patent, Sarah Goode continued operating her furniture business in Chicago. While detailed records of her business operations are limited, evidence suggests that she manufactured and sold her cabinet beds alongside other furniture pieces. The Goode furniture store became known in the community not just as a place to buy furniture but as an example of successful Black entrepreneurship.
Chicago's African American community in the late 19th century was growing rapidly and developing its own business district along State Street and other South Side locations. Black-owned businesses faced significant challenges, including discrimination from suppliers, difficulty obtaining bank loans, and harassment from white competitors. Despite these obstacles, entrepreneurs like the Goodes established thriving enterprises that served their community and demonstrated Black economic capability.
Sarah Goode's role as a Black woman business owner was particularly unusual. Most women in the 1880s worked in domestic service, teaching, or nursing if they worked outside the home at all. Running a furniture business required carpentry skills, business management abilities, customer relations, inventory management, and financial acumen—capabilities that society assumed women didn't possess. Goode proved otherwise, running a successful operation for years.
Despite her groundbreaking achievement, Sarah E. Goode's story was largely forgotten for decades. Historical records about her life are frustratingly sparse. We don't know where or when she was educated, the exact dates of her marriage, how long her business operated, or many other details that would have been routinely recorded for white male inventors. Even the date and circumstances of her death on April 8, 1905, are documented only minimally.
This historical erasure reflects broader patterns of how women's achievements and Black achievements were systematically excluded from mainstream historical narratives. Patent records and business directories confirm Goode's existence and accomplishment, but the kind of biographical detail, newspaper coverage, and historical recognition given to white male inventors of far less significance was denied to her.
In recent decades, historians and educators have worked to recover Goode's story and ensure that her pioneering achievement receives proper recognition. She is now included in curricula about women inventors, African American history, and the history of innovation. Museums, historical societies, and educational institutions have highlighted her story as an important example of how innovation comes from diverse communities and how many significant achievements have been overlooked in traditional historical accounts.
Sarah Goode's folding cabinet bed revolutionized space-saving furniture and proved that innovation knows no race or gender. Her historic patent opened doors for Black women inventors who followed.
Sarah E. Goode's legacy extends far beyond her folding cabinet bed. As the first African American woman to receive a United States patent, she shattered assumptions about who could be an inventor and who deserved recognition for innovation. Her achievement came just two decades after the end of slavery, during an era when Jim Crow laws were being established throughout the South and when discrimination against African Americans remained legal and widespread in the North.
For Black women especially, Goode's patent represented a powerful symbol of possibility. In the 1880s, the vast majority of Black women worked in domestic service or agricultural labor—jobs with low pay, no prestige, and no opportunity for advancement. The idea that a Black woman could not only run a business but also create a novel invention and receive governmental recognition for it challenged deeply held racist and sexist assumptions about capability and genius.
Modern space-saving furniture designers continue to build on the foundation Goode laid. Walk into any IKEA, visit any tiny house, or browse any apartment furnishing catalog, and you'll see descendants of Goode's cabinet bed: wall beds, sofa beds, transforming tables, modular furniture systems. The principle she pioneered—that furniture should adapt to space constraints through smart, multi-functional design—has become a cornerstone of modern interior design and urban living.
Perhaps most importantly, Sarah Goode demonstrated the power of observing everyday problems and creating practical solutions. She didn't invent something abstract or theoretical; she created a piece of furniture that addressed a real need she saw in her own community. Her invention emerged from her direct experience as a business owner serving working-class customers in cramped apartments. This approach to innovation—identifying community needs and creating accessible solutions—remains a powerful model for inventors and entrepreneurs today.
Though much of her life story remains obscured by the historical erasure that affected so many African American and women innovators, what we know of Sarah E. Goode reveals a remarkable person: an entrepreneur, inventor, and pioneer who refused to be limited by society's expectations and whose ingenuity continues to influence how we think about furniture and living spaces more than a century after her death.