Born as a slave in 1849 on a plantation in Woodland, Alabama, Andrew Jackson Beard was a farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, railroad worker, businessman, and inventor. He was a self-educated farmer in Alabama when he thought up the idea of inventing the plow. In 1881, he patented one of his plows, which he sold for $4,000 three years later. In 1887, he invented another plow, sold it, and used the proceeds to finance a profitable real estate business and a taxi company. In 1892, he patented his rotary engine.
 
While working in the railroad yards, Beard suffered a serious accident when he was crushed between two cars while linking them. He lost a leg in the process. Car coupling was an extremely dangerous procedure, involving split-second timing to drop a metal pin into place at the precise moment the cars pulled in together. Many railroad men lost their lives and limbs during this operation. This fueled Beard's resolve and imagination to create a device that linked cars automatically.
 
On November 23, 1897, he obtained a patent for his railroad car coupler—the "Jenny Coupler."  In that same year, he sold his patent rights to a New York firm for $50,000, which was a substantial sum at that time. The device, improved in 1899, was the precursor of today's linking mechanism. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio for his work on the railroad coupling design.

"Historians are unsure why it was named the "coupling Jenny" or "Jenny Coupler," but it should not be confused with the Janney Coupler invented by Eli Janney and patented in 1873."

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