Fighting Floods

Historical marker location:

Potomac, Maryland

( Marker is on Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath, on the left when traveling north.)

Maryland was home to the first African American woman to hold a patent: In 1885, Sarah E. Goode, an African American woman from Baltimore, became the first African American woman to hold a U.S. patent. Her invention was a folding cabinet bed, which was designed to save space in small apartments.