William G. Morgan William G. Morgan William George Morgan (January 23, 1870 – December 27, 1942) was the inventor of volleyball, originally called "Mintonette", a name derived from the game of badminton which he later agreed to change to better reflect the nature of the sport. He was born in Lockport, New York, US. He met James Naismith, inventor of basketball, while Morgan was studying at Springfield College in 1892. Like Naismith, Morgan pursued a career in Physical Education at the YMCA. Influenced by Naismith and basketball, in 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Morgan invented "Mintonette" a less vigorous team sport more suitable for
Garrett Morgan aged 86 and is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Morgan experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish that prevented the needle from scorching fabric as it sewed. In 1905, Morgan accidentally discovered that the liquid could also straighten hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. He also made a black hair oil dye and invented a curved-tooth comb for hair straightening in 1910. Garrett Morgan invented a safety hood smoke protection device after seeing firefighters struggling from the smoke they