The colored inventor

by Henry E. Baker

Another instance is that of Mr. James Forten, of Philadelphia, who is credited with the invention of an apparatus for managing sails. He lived from 1766 to 1842, and his biographer says he amassed a competence from his invention and lived in leisurely comfort as a consequence.

Still another instance is that of Robert Benjamin Lewis, who was born in Gardiner, Me., in 1802. He invented a machine for picking oakum, which machine is said to be in use to-day in all the essential particulars of its original form by the shipbuilding interests of Maine, especially at Bath.

It is of common knowledge that in the South, prior to the War of the Rebellion, the burden of her industries, mechanical as well as agricultural, fell upon the colored population. They formed the great majority of her mechanics and skilled artisans as well as of her ordinary laborers, and from this class of workmen came a great variety of the ordinary mechanical appliances, the invention of which grew directly out of the problems presented by their daily employment.

There has been a somewhat persistent rumor that a slave either invented the cotton gin or gave to Eli Whitney, who obtained a patent for it, valuable suggestions to aid in the completion of that invention. I have not been able to find any substantial proof to sustain that rumor. Mr. Daniel Murray, of the Library of Congress, contributed a very informing article on that subject to the Voice of the Negro, in 1905, but Mr. Murray did not reach conclusions favorable to the contention on behalf of the colored man.

It is said that the zigzag fence, so commonly used by farmers and others, was originally introduced into this country by African slaves.

We come now to consider the list of more modern inventions, those inventions from which the element of uncertainty is wholly eliminated, and which are represented in the patent records of our government.

In this verified list of nearly 800 patents granted by our government to the inventors of our race we find that they have applied their inventive talent to the whole range of inventive subjects; that in agricultural implements, in wood and metal-working machines, in land conveyances on road and track, in seagoing vessels, in chemical compounds, in electricity through all its wide range of uses, in aeronautics, in new designs of house furniture and bric-à-brac, in mechanical toys and amusement devices, the colored inventor has achieved such success as should present to the race a distinctly hope-inspiring spectacle.

Of course it is not possible, in this particular presentation of the subject, to dwell much at length upon the merits of any considerable number of individual cases. This feature will be brought out more fully in the larger publication on this subject which the writer now has in course of preparation. But there are several conspicuous examples of success in this line of endeavor that should be fully emphasized in any treatment of this subject. I like to tell of what has been done by Granville T. Woods and his brother Lyates, of New York; by Elijah McCoy, of Detroit; by Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey; by William B. Purvis, of Philadelphia; Ferrell and Creamer, of New York; by Douglass, of Ohio; Murray, of South Carolina; Matzeliger, of Lynn; Beard, of Alabama; Richey, of the District of Columbia; and a host of others that I could mention.

Foremost among these men in the number and variety of his inventions, as well as in the commercial value involved, stands the name of Granville T. Woods. Six years ago Mr. Woods sent me a list of his inventions patented up to that time, and there were then about thirty of them, since which time he has added nearly as many more, including those which he perfected jointly with his brother Lyates. His inventions relate principally to electrical subjects, such as telegraphic and telephonic instruments, electric railways and general systems of electrical control, and include several patents on means for transmitting telegraphic messages between moving trains.

The records of the Patent Office show that for valuable consideration several of Mr. Woods' patents have been assigned to the foremost electrical corporations of the world, such as the General Electric Company, of New York, and the American Bell Telephone Company, of Boston. These records also show that he followed other lines of thought in the exercise of his inventive faculty, one of his other inventions being an incubator, another a complicated and ingenious amusement device, another a steam-boiler furnace, and also a mechanical brake.