There is not much information available about Sarah E. Goode’s life. What has been published is that Goode was born towards the end of the abolition of slavery in the United States Sarah E Goode Sees a Need and Creates the Solution
Through numerous historical accounts and facts we can presume that as a child slave, she must have experienced the indignities of being owned by a white plantation owner. We know that Goode was born in the south but little is known about her education, her family ties or when she died.
It is fair to say that most slaves were illiterate unless they were the offspring of the plantation owners who may have been given a very basic education or if slave children were playmates for the plantation owner’s offspring or house servants, they too may have received some informal education through members of the owner’s family. It is possible to conceive that Goode attained some fundamental knowledge of English grammar and mathematics as she was able to start her own business which eventually became very successful.
Sarah E. Goode overcame many hurdles that black women endured during the time that she was alive. It was extremely uncommon for women to own their own business in the 1800’s; women were just on the cusp of earning civil rights. For an emancipated slave to achieve this status was almost impossible.
Sarah E. Goode was an unprecedented and remarkable woman to achieve the distinction of being the first African American women to be granted a patent.
she is a great women n now im getting mad i am doin a report on her n im not not foundin nun can any one help me…………
I also found it very difficult to find any information about her. Good luck with your report.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for. Can you be more specific?
i need help please…..
im am 11 n i am having trouble findind information about her n im also doing a report
Same here but I am still trying to figure out are we related because we have the same last name.
i am 10 and i am doing a report. so hard
same here !
i am doin a report on her do in 3 days and haven’t found a lot of stuff
I have a project on her too and I am only a fourth grader please help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are extensive histories of the Goode family, the name Goda or Gode and many variations, originating in 400 – 1200 A.C.E. as the first name of Anglo-Saxons from France and England, the first known history starting with the Norman conquest (1066) (Last names started in England to help collect taxes. There were numerous people with the first name Goda or Gode, and it became a last name. It was a very common name.)
A book from 1887, “The Virginia Cousins”, was something probably created because of someone wanting to enter politics, but is also very detailed, some 500 pages, and traces the name extensively through reliable historical sources. There were Goodes all along the American seaboard from the 1630s (??), from Maine to Georgia.
Of interest here is a story I was told by a Goode, a black woman from Chicago originally, and Goode was her maiden name. I also encountered the same story independently from a man who looked mostly white, but had curly afro hair, named Goode. Both related the story to me because they knew my last name is Goode. Point being, the story was told by two people who did not know each other (until I introduced them), and the details of the story were part of their “family history”, and both were from Chicago.
The story goes that a Goode, a white man of which little or nothing is known, was a plantation owner with slaves, in Virginia/the South, and during the late 1700s or early 1800s, fell into financial hardship. He took his slaves with him to Barbados (originally colonized by Portugal) on the promise that upon re-establishing his wealth with their help, he would set them free (no longer possible in the U.S.) and also allow them to use his family name / or married one and had children.
The following is complete SPECULATION: Goode is listed as mulatto, the significance of which I am uncertain in it’s particularities, but might be part of this history. There are some histories known to me through my family, that there were Goodes that made furniture (my grandfather being one). The significance, if any, is that there is an oral history of a “working relationship” and/or slave and master relationship between the Goodes. Listing her ancestry as spanish may indicate that she was granted her freedom prior to the end of the civil war / slavery. Barbados was originally a Portuguese colony, and then a British colony, and slavery was abolished there around 1816, somewhat. In 1834 Barbados fully abolished slavery, and slaves could be granted their freedom after a four year apprenticeship in a craft. There were many artisans in Louisiana who were blacks that gained freedom for their children through similar arrangements in New Orleans, Louisiana at one time granting freedom to all children, irrespective of race. It would make sense that around 1834, slaves could travel to Barbados with a white person, enter an apprenticeship – like furniture building – and gain their full emancipation outside the U.S., but reenter the U.S. as free by obscuring their original status as a U.S. slave, and the U.S. would respect the emancipation from a foreign country, while that was not possible in the U.S. Then, traveling to Chicago, perhaps by way of Louisiana to make a record of the slaves emancipation (???), and listing an ancestry as Spanish to conceal or protect against further discrimination, either legally or otherwise. This would explain being born into slavery, and being granted freedom, and being a business woman, and knowing a trade, and ending up in Chicago.
If anyone can fill in parts of the connection between the Black Chicago Goode’s, Barbados, and or the connection between Goode’s and furniture building, this of particular interest to me personally. Thank you.
Hello,
I am working with my 8 year old daughter on a project for school about Famous Africian Americans. After a little research, we took on the life of Sarah Goode. I was hoping to not only teach my daughter some black history, but also hightlight the life of a strong black women who defied the odds. Sarah Goode fit perfectly.
I just came across your listing and read it with fasination. Obviously, little is known about Sarah Goode’s family. As an Irish Americian, I have done some family research on my own and can relate to the desire to find answers. I so enjoyed your summary and with the little bit I’ve researched, it makes total sense. It was almost a year ago that you posted and I was wondering if you had any further success. I wish you good luck and thanks for sharing your family history with us. It really was enriching and a wonderful lesson for my daughter.
Dear Bernadette,
Thank you for your kind words. I can not take credit regarding being part Sarah Goode’s family as I too researched strong African American women for a class project a few years ago and this page was the end result.
I hope that you were able to find the information that your daughter needed for her assignment too. I’m sure that she will do well with a supportive mother like you!
I wish you and your daughter my best,
Lauren
I know my last name goode comes from Coy, Alabama. There’s even a street named kelsaw goode…. and thats were my family lived. And mulatto means mixed with white and black.
Sarah was born Sarah Elizabeth Jacobs in Ohio. She married Archibald Goode Jr.
The Goode family migrated from Virginia to Michigan in the 1850s & some later moved on to Chicago. Archibald Goode Sr, his wife and children were first recorded as free persons of color in Virginia in 1850. Thus far, I have not been able to find anything that links the Goode family to Barbados.
I came across the Goode Family in suffolk, VA and went to the family reunion last year. Will attend again this year. That family line has traced their great grandfather Rufus Goode to Barbados. I suspect that Rufus is one of the slaves who went back to Barbados and left relatives here. He eventually moved to Suffolk, VA, where other Goodes were already settled.
My daughter is also doing a research project on Sarah E. Goode. I came across several articles on her. However, Goode was listed as her married name. She was born to Tiara and Thomas Hill and most likely fathered by the slave owner, as she was listed as mulatto and the E is listed as Evans (possible her slave owners last name). She married Archibald Goode, a carpenter, and together they opened a furniture business. She is listed as having 1 daughter, but no name is listed. There is a very old photo that can be googled of someone listed as Sarah E. Goode, inventor, however, records on her are poor and she looks older than 43 yo as her ? listed age of death.
I agree that the information out there is confusing but Sarah E. Goode definitely deserves a place in history. I just wish more information on her can be researched and published.
This was somewhat helpful because I am too doing a project on Sarah E. Goode. It was very good information just not what I needed thanks for the help!!
i am also doing a report on sarah. she doesnt have a lot of records its very complicated to find imformation on her!
man i have to do a report on her thats not fair
Mulatto means half Black. However, she does not look Black at all in the picture. It shows straight hair and light eyes. All mulattos would have black eyes, dark skin & kinky hair because light eyes and skin are ‘recessive’ genes. You have to get the blue-eyed gene from both sides in order for it to manifest itself so she couldn’t have been more than 1/4 Black at most. In which case she should have been listed as a quadroon. (A Quadroon was 1/4 black, an Octaroon was 1/8 Black, etc.)
FYI – Something else that schools like to overlook nowdays is that not all slaves were Black. There were many Irish & Scottish slaves sent over by the Brits as punishment for their rebellion. In fact, there often were more White slaves than Black slaves according to historical records.
Whatever her racial heritage, the little known facts and research about her life are all very interesting. I think a bed that folds into a desk would be quite useful.
i didn’t like the info try better next time
I’m sorry that you didn’t like the info. If you have more or better information, I’d love to see it.
there is not a lot of information about her i found some things on these websites,www.biography.com, http://www.americacomesalive.com, and http://www.blackpast.org
Hi, I have been looking through a lot of information on Sarah Goode. This information stated that she was born in the late 1850’s to Oliver and Harriet Jacobs in Toledo Ohio. She was born into slavery. She was the 2nd of 7 children. When slavery was over they migrated/moved to Chicago Illinois. Her father was a carpenter which is how she became accustomed to building and making furniture. She met her husband Archibald Goode and they were married and later had 6 children which of the 6 only 3 lived to adulthood. Most of her clients complained because their quarters/apartments were so small they had no room for furniture and bedding. She invented the cabinet bed she described as the folding bed. She received a patent on her invention. Now some say she was the 1st black women to get a patent, but there was a Judy Reed who received a patent on 09-23-1884 for a dough kneading machine. Goode received her patent on 07-14-1885. No education can be found on her.
You are more than welcome to use these two sites as your references.
http://www.blackpast.org
http://www.americacomesalive.com
happy hunting. I will be adding additional information as i find it.
Elizabeth
I can not find her siblings’ names.