Sarah E. Goode
Sarah E. Goode, born into slavery in 1850, was the first African-American woman to receive a United States patent for her invention of a folding cabinet bed in 1885. Â After the American Civil War, she gained her freedom and moved to Chicago, Illinois where she soon opened a furniture store. Her aha moment came when many of her customers complained about not having enough room to fit full sized beds in their apartments. She later constructed what we now call the folding or rollaway bed.