The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

V >> Various >> The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

The national ban on patents for the inventions of slaves did not, of
course, attach itself to the inventions made by "free persons of
color" residing in this country. So that when James Forten, of
Philadelphia, who lived from 1766 to 1842, perfected a new device for
handling sails, he had no difficulty in obtaining a patent for his
invention, nor in deriving from it comfortable financial support for
himself and family during the remainder of his life.

This was also true in the case of Norbert Rillieux, a colored Creole
of Louisiana. In 1846 he invented and patented a vacuum pan which in
its day revolutionized to a large extent the then known method of
refining sugar. This invention with others which he also patented are
known to have aided very materially in developing the sugar industry
of Louisiana. Rillieux was a machinist and an engineer of fine
reputation in his native State, and displayed remarkable talent for
scientific work on a large scale. Among his other known achievements
was the development of a practicable scheme for a system of sewerage
for the city of New Orleans, but he here met his handicap of color
through the refusal of the authorities to accord to him such an honor
as would be evidenced by the acceptance and adoption of his plan.[18]
Who knows but that the city of New Orleans might have been able to
write a different chapter in the history of its health statistics on
the Yellow Fever peril if its prejudices had not been allowed to
dominate its prophecy?

[Illustration: _N. Rillieux_

_Evaporating Pan._

_No. 4,879_

_Patented Dec. 10, 1846_

_Sheet 3-4 Sheets_]

Let us turn now to a consideration of those inventions made by colored
inventors since the war period, and at a time when no obstacles stood
in the way. With the broadening of their industrial opportunities, and
the incentive of a freer market for the products of their talent, it
was thought that the Negroes would correspondingly exhibit inventive
genius, and the records abundantly prove this to have been true. But
how have these records been made available? It has already been shown
that no distinction as to race appears in the public records of the
Patent Office, and for this reason the Patent Office has been
repeatedly importuned to set in motion some scheme of inquiry that
would disclose, as far as is possible, how many patents have been
granted by the government for the inventions of Negroes. This has been
done by the Patent Office on two different occasions. The first
official inquiry was made by the Office at the request of the United
States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, and the second at
the request of the Pennsylvania Commission conducting the Emancipation
Exposition at Philadelphia in 1913. In both instances the Patent
Office sent out several thousand circular letters directed to
prominent patent lawyers, large manufacturing firms, and to newspapers
of wide circulation, asking them to inform the Commissioner of Patents
of any authentic instances known by them to be such, in which the
patents granted by the Office had been for inventions by Negroes.

The replies were numerous, interesting and informing. Every one of the
several thousand that came to the Patent Office was turned over to the
writer who, in his capacity as an employee of that department, very
willingly assumed the additional task of assorting and recording them,
verifying when possible the information presented, and extending the
correspondence personally when this proved to be necessary either to
trace a clew or clinch a fact. The information obtained in this way
showed, first, that a very large number of colored inventors had
consulted patent lawyers on the subject of getting patents on their
inventions, but were obliged finally to abandon the project for lack
of funds; secondly, that many colored inventors had actually obtained
patents for meritorious inventions, but the attorneys were unable to
give sufficient data to identify the cases specifically, inasmuch as
they had kept no identifying record of the same; thirdly, that many
patents had been taken out by the attorneys for colored clients who
preferred not to have their racial identity disclosed because of the
probably injurious effect this might have upon the commercial value of
their patents; and lastly, that more than a thousand authentic cases
were fully identified by name of inventor, date and number of patent
and title of invention, as being the patents granted for inventions of
Negroes. These patents represent inventions in nearly every branch of
the industrial arts--in domestic devices, in mechanical appliances, in
electricity through all its wide range of uses, in engineering skill
and in chemical compounds. The fact is made quite clear that the names
obtained were necessarily only a fractional part of the number granted
patents.

It developed through these inquiries that some very important
industries now in operation on a large scale in our country are based
on the inventions of Negroes. Foremost among these is the gigantic
enterprise known as The United Shoe Machinery Company of Boston. In a
biographical sketch of its president, Mr. Sidney W. Winslow, a
multimillionaire,[19] it is related that he claims to have laid the
foundation of his immense fortune in the purchase of a patent for an
invention by a Dutch Guiana Negro named Jan E. Matzeliger. This
inventor was born in Dutch Guiana, September, 1852. His parents were a
native Negro woman and her husband, a Dutch engineer, who had been
sent there from Holland to direct the government construction works at
that place. As a very young man Matzeliger came to this country and
served an apprenticeship as a cobbler, first in Philadelphia and later
in Lynn, Massachusetts. The hardships which he suffered gradually
undermined his health and before being able to realize the full value
of his invention, he passed away in 1889 in the thirty-seventh year of
his age.

He invented a machine for lasting shoes. This was the first appliance
of its kind capable of performing all the steps required to hold a
shoe on its last, grip and pull the leather down around the heel,
guide and drive the nails into place and then discharge the completed
shoe from the machine. This patent when bought by Mr. Winslow was made
to form the nucleus of the great United Shoe Machinery Company, which
now operates on a capital stock of more than twenty million dollars,
gives regular employment to over 5,000 operatives, occupies with its
factories more than 20 acres of ground, and represents the
consolidation of over 40 subsidiary companies. The establishment and
maintenance of this gigantic business enterprise forms one of the
biggest items in the history of our country's industrial development.

Within the first twenty years following the formation of The United
Shoe Machinery Company, in 1890, the product of American shoe
manufacturers increased from $220,000,000 to $442,631,000, and during
the same period the export of American shoes increased from $1,000,000
to $11,000,000, the increase being traceable solely to the superiority
of the shoes produced by the new American machines, founded on the
Matzeliger type. The cost of shoes was reduced more than 50 per cent.
by these machines and the quality improved correspondingly. The wages
of workers greatly increased, the hours of labor diminished, and the
factory conditions surrounding the laborers immensely improved. The
improvement thus brought about in the quality and price of American
shoes has made the Americans the best shod people in the world.[20]

That invention will serve as Matzeliger's towering monument far beyond
our vision of years. Throughout all shoe-making districts of New
England and elsewhere the Matzeliger type of machine is well known,
and to this day it is frequently referred to in trade circles as the
"Nigger machine," the relic, perhaps, of a possible contemptuous
reference to his racial identity; and yet there were some newspaper
accounts of his life in which it was denied that he had Negro blood in
him. A certified copy of the death certificate of Matzeliger, which
was furnished the writer by William J. Connery, Mayor of Lynn, on Oct.
23, 1912, states that Matzeliger was a mulatto.

[Illustration: J. E. MATZELIGER

LASTING MACHINE

NO. 274,207

PATENTED MAR. 20, 1883

AN ILLUSTRATION SHOWING THE MODELS MADE BY MATZELIGER TO ILLUSTRATE
HIS INVENTIONS IN SHOE MACHINES.]

Another prosperous business growing out of the inventions of a colored
man is The Ripley Foundry and Machine Company, of Ripley, Ohio,
established by John P. Parker. He obtained several patents on his
inventions, one being a "screw for Tobacco Presses," patented in
September, 1884, and another for a similar device patented in May,
1885. Mr. Parker set up a shop in Ripley for the manufacture of his
presses, and the business proved successful from the first. The small
shop grew into a large foundry where upwards of 25 men were constantly
employed. It was owned and managed by Mr. Parker till his death. The
factory is still being operated, and on the business lines originated
by the founder, but the ownership has passed from the Parker family.

Another business, the development of which is due in large measure to
the inventions of a colored man, Elijah McCoy, is that of making
automatic lubricators for machinery. Mr. McCoy is regarded as a
pioneer inventor in that line. He completed and patented his first
lubricating cup in 1872. Since then he has patented both in this
country and abroad nearly fifty different inventions relating
principally to the art of automatic lubrication machinery, but
including also a considerable variety of other devices. His
lubricating cup was at one time in quite general use on the
locomotives of the leading railways of the Northwest, on the steamers
of the Great Lakes, and in up-to-date factories throughout the
country. He is still living in Detroit, Michigan, and still adding new
inventions to his already lengthy list.

In completing and patenting upwards of 50 different inventions
Granville T. Woods, late of New York, appears to have surpassed every
other colored inventor in the number and variety of his inventions.
His inventive record began in 1884 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he then
resided, and continued without interruption for over a quarter of a
century. He passed away January 30, 1910, in the city of New York,
where he had carried on his business for several years immediately
preceding. While his inventions relate principally to electricity, the
list also includes such as a steam boiler furnace, the subject of his
first patent, obtained in June, 1884; an amusement apparatus,
December, 1899; an incubator, August, 1900; and automatic airbrakes,
in 1902, 1903, and 1905. His inventions in telegraphy include several
patents for transmitting messages between moving trains, also a number
of other transmitters. He patented fifteen inventions for electric
railways, and as many more various devices for electrical control and
distribution.

In the earlier stages of his career as a successful inventor he
organized the Woods Electric Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. This
company took over by assignment many of his earlier patents; but as
his reputation in the scientific world grew apace, and his inventions
began to multiply in number and value, he seems to have found a ready
market for them with some of the largest and most prosperous technical
and scientific corporations in the United States. The official records
of the United States Patent Office show that many of his patents were
assigned to such companies as the General Electric Company, of New
York, some to the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, of Pennsylvania,
others to the American Bell Telephone Company, of Boston, and still
others to the American Engineering Company, of New York. So far as the
writer is aware there is no inventor of the colored race whose
creative genius has covered quite so wide a field as that of Granville
T. Woods, nor one whose achievements have attracted more universal
attention and favorable comment from technical and scientific journals
both in this country and abroad.

Granville Woods' brother, Lyates Woods, is credited with uniting with
Granville in the joint invention of several machines. Most of these
consisted of electrical apparatuses, but two of them seem to have been
of sufficient importance to attract the attention of such corporations
as the Westinghouse Electric Company, of Pennsylvania. Patents No.
775,825, of March 29, 1904, and No. 795,243, of July 18, 1905, both
for railway brakes, were assigned by the Woods brothers to this
company. The record shows that the American Bell Telephone Company
purchased Woods' patent No. 315,386, granted April 7, 1885, for the
latter's invention of an apparatus for transmitting messages by
electricity. The same inventor sold to the General Electric Company,
of New York, his patent No. 667,110, of January 29, 1901, on his
invention for electric railways.

We should mention here also two other inventors of importance in the
line of appliances for musical instruments, Mr. J. H. Dickinson and
his son S. L. Dickinson, both of New Jersey. They have been granted
more than a dozen patents for their appliances, mostly in the line of
devices connected with the player piano machinery. They are still
engaged in the business of inventing, and both are holding responsible
and lucrative positions with first-class music corporations.

The inventions of W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, in machinery for
making paper bags are reported to be responsible for much of the great
improvement made in that art; and his patents, more than a dozen in
number on that subject alone, are said to have brought him good
financial returns. Many of them are recorded as having been sold to
the Union Paper Bag Company, of New York.

Another instance is that of an invention capable of playing an
important part in the cotton raising industry. This was a
cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert,
a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which
is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy
of accomplishment in that class of machinery. Special significance is
attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting
through his application for a patent. He was obliged to appeal from
the adverse decision of the principal examiner to the Board of
Examiners-In-Chief, a body of highly trained legal and technical
experts appointed to pass upon the legal and mechanical merits of an
invention turned down by the primary examiners. Albert appeared before
this Board in his own defense with a brief prepared entirely by
himself, and won his case through his thorough painstaking
presentation of all the legal and technical points involved. Mr.
Albert is a graduate of the Law Department of Howard University in
Washington, and is connected with the United States Civil Service as
an examiner in the Pension Office.

Other colored men in the Departmental Civil Service at Washington have
obtained patents for valuable inventions. W. A. Lavalette patented two
printing presses, Shelby J. Davidson a mechanical tabulator and adding
machine, Robert A. Pelham a pasting machine, Andrew F. Hilyer two hot
air register attachments; and Andrew D. Washington a shoe horn. Nearly
a dozen patents have been granted Benjamin F. Jackson, of
Massachusetts, on his inventions. These consisted of a heating
apparatus, a matrix drying apparatus, a gas burner, an electrotyper's
furnace, a steam boiler, a trolley wheel controller, a tank signal,
and a hydrocarbon burner system.

It is not generally known that Frederick J. Loudin, who brought fame
and fortune to one of the leading Negro universities in the South by
carrying the Fisk Jubilee Troupe of Singers on several successful
concert tours around the world, is also entitled to a place on the
list of Negro inventors. He obtained two patents for his inventions,
one for a fastener for the meeting rails of sashes, December, 1893,
and the other a key fastener in January, 1894. Several colored
inventors have also applied their inventive skill to solving the
problem of aerial navigation, with the result that some of them have
been granted patents for their inventions in airships. Among these are
J. F. Pickering, of Haiti, February 20, 1900; James Smith, California,
October, 1912; W. G. Madison, Iowa, December, 1912; and J. E. Whooter,
Missouri, 2 patents, October 30 and November 3, 1914. It has been
reported that the invention in automatic car coupling covered by the
patent to Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, dated November 23, 1897, was
sold by the patentee to a New York car company, for more than fifty
thousand dollars. This same patentee has obtained patents on more than
a half dozen other inventions, mostly in the same line.

Willie H. Johnson, of Texas, obtained several patents on his
inventions, two of them being for an appliance for overcoming "dead
center" in motion; one for a compound engine, and another for a water
boiler. Joseph Lee, a colored hotel keeper, of Boston, completed and
patented three inventions in dough-kneading machines, and is reported
as having succeeded in creating a considerable market for them in the
bread-making industry in New England. Brinay Smartt, of Tennessee,
made inventions in reversing valve gears, and received several patents
on them in 1905, 1906, 1909, 1911 and 1913.

The path of the inventor is not always an easy one. The experiences of
many of them often lie along paths that seem like the proverbial "way
of the transgressor." This was fitly exemplified in the case of Henry
A. Bowman, a colored inventor in Worcester, Massachusetts, who devised
and patented a new method of making flags. After he had established a
paying business on his invention, the information came to him that a
New York rival was using the same invention and "cutting" his
business. Bowman brought suit for infringement, but, as he informed
the writer, the suit went against him on a legal technicality, and
being unable to carry the case through the appellate tribunals, the
destruction of his business followed.

One inventor, J. W. Benton, of Kentucky, completed an invention of a
derrick for hoisting, and being without sufficient means to travel to
Washington to look after the patent, he packed the model in a grip,
and walked from Kentucky to Washington in order to save carfare. He
obtained his patent, October 2, 1900.

One other instance in which the inventor regards his experience as one
of special hardship is the case of E. A. Robinson of Chicago. He
obtained several patents for his inventions, among which are an
electric railway trolley, September 19, 1893; casting composite and
other car wheels, November 23, 1897; a trolley wheel, March 22, 1898;
a railway switch, September 17, 1907; and a rail, May 5, 1908. He
regards the second patent as covering his most valuable invention. He
says that this was infringed on by two large corporations, the
American Car and Foundry Company, and the Chicago City Railway
Company. He endeavored to stop them by litigation, but the court
proceedings in the case[21] appear to reveal some rather discouraging
aspects of a fight waged between a powerless inventor on the one side
and two powerful corporations on the other. So far as is known, the
case is still pending.

These instances of hardships, however, in the lot of inventors are in
no sense peculiar to colored inventors. They merely form a part of the
hard struggle always present in our American life--the struggle for
the mighty dollar; and in the field of invention as elsewhere the race
is not always to the swift. A man may be the first to conceive a new
idea, the first to translate that idea into tangible, practical form
and reduce it to a patent, but often that "slip betwixt the cup and
the lip" leaves him the last to get any reward for his inventive
genius.

Because of the very many interesting instances at hand the temptation
is very great to extend this enumeration beyond the intended limits of
this article by specific references to the large number of colored men
and women who in many lands and other days have given unmistakable
evidence of really superior scientific and technical ability. But this
temptation the writer must resist. Let it suffice to say that the
citations already given show conclusively that the color of a man's
skin has not yet entirely succeeded in barring his admission to the
domain of science, nor in placing upon his brow the stamp of
intellectual inferiority.

HENRY E. BAKER,

_Assistant Examiner, United States Patent Office_.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] "Twentieth Century Negro Literature," by W. W. Culp, page 399.
Published by J. L. Nichols Co., Atlanta, Ga.

[16] Opinions of Attorney General of the U. S., Vol. 9, page 171.

[17] An act to establish a Patent Office, and to provide for granting
patents for new and useful discoveries, inventions, improvements and
designs. Statutes at large of the Confederate States of America,
1861-64, page 148.

[18] Desdunes, Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, 101.

[19] _Munsey's Magazine_, August, 1912, p. 723.

[20] "Short History of American Shoemaking," by Frederick A. Gannon,
Salem, Mass., 1912.

[21] A copy of this was shown the writer September, 1915.

ANTHONY BENEZET

During the eighteenth century the Quakers gradually changed from the
introspective state of seeking their own welfare into the altruistic
mood of helping those who shared with them the heritage of being
despised and rejected of men. After securing toleration for their sect
in the inhospitable New World they began to think seriously of others
whose lot was unfortunate. The Negroes, therefore, could not escape
their attention. Almost every Quaker center declared its attitude
toward the bondmen, varying it according to time and place. From the
first decade of the eighteenth century to the close of the American
Revolution the Quakers passed through three stages in the development
of their policy concerning the enslavement of the blacks. At first
they directed their attention to preventing their own adherents from
participating in it, then sought to abolish the slave trade and
finally endeavored to improve the condition of all slaves as a
preparation for emancipation.

Among those who largely determined the policy of the Quakers during
that century were William Burling[22] of Long Island, Ralph Sandiford
of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Lay of Abington, John Woolman of New Jersey
and Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia. Early conceiving an abhorrence to
slavery, Burling denounced it by writing anti-slavery tracts and
portraying its unlawfulness at the yearly meetings of the Quakers.
Ralph Sandiford followed the same methods and in his "_Mystery of
Iniquity_" published in 1729, forcefully exposed the iniquitous
practice in a stirring appeal in behalf of the Africans.[23] Benjamin
Lay, not contented with the mere writing of tracts, availed himself of
the opportunity afforded by frequent contact with those in power to
interview administrative officials of the slave colonies, undauntedly
demanding that they bestir themselves to abolish the evil system.[24]
Struck by the wickedness of the institution while traveling through
the South prior to the Revolution, John Woolman spent his remaining
years as an itinerant preacher, urging the members of his society
everywhere to eradicate the evil.[25] Anthony Benezet, going a step
further, rendered greater service than any of these as an anti-slavery
publicist and at the same time persistently toiled as a worker among
the Negroes.

Benezet was born in St. Quentin in Picardy in France in 1713. He was a
descendant of a family of Huguenots who after all but establishing
their faith in France saw themselves denounced and persecuted as
heretics and finally driven from the country by the edict of Nantes.
One of the reformer's family, Francois Benezet, perished on the
scaffold at Montpelier in 1755, fearlessly proclaiming to the
multitude of spectators the doctrines for which he had been condemned
to die.[26] Unwilling to withstand the imminent persecution, however,
John Stephen Benezet, Anthony's father, fled from France to Holland
but after a brief stay in that country moved to London in 1715.

After being liberally educated by his father, Benezet served an
apprenticeship in one of the leading establishments of London to
prepare himself for a career in the commercial world. He had some
difficulty, however, in coming to the conclusion that he would be very
useful in this field. He, therefore, soon abandoned this idea and
followed mechanical pursuits until he moved with his family to
Philadelphia in 1731. There his brothers easily established themselves
in a successful business and endeavored to induce Anthony to join
them, but the youth was still of the impression that this was not his
calling. His life's work was finally determined by his early
connection with the Quakers, to the religious views and testimonies of
whom he rigidly adhered. He continued his mechanical pursuit and later
undertook manufacturing at Washington, Delaware, but feeling that
neither of these satisfied his desire to be thoroughly useful he
decided to return to Philadelphia to devote his life to religion and
humanity.[27]

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40