“A Little Dreaming” is a volume by Fenton Johnson of Chicago that has been favorably commented on in this country and Europe.
The most famous of the Negro Shakesperian scholars was Ira Aldridge of Bel Air Maryland. He is said to have had no equal in the personification of Othello, the Moor. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the First Class for “Art and Science” by the King of Prussia, a distinction that had never before been awarded to any but Humbolt, Spentini, the composer and Liszt, the musician. His title in England was that of “Royal Saxe Ernest House Order,” a title of higher degree than that of “Sir” so much coveted in Britain. He was a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg.
Bert Williams, another Negro actor, bears the distinction of being the “Greatest Comedian on the American Stage.”
The inventive genius of the Negro is to be seen in the records of the patent office at Washington. These show the application of a wide range of inventive talent, including agricultural implements, in wood and metal working machines, in land conveyances on road and steel rail tracks, in ocean going vessels, in chemistry and chemical compounds, in electricity in all its wide range of uses, in aereonautics, in new designs of house furniture and bric-a-brac, in mechanical toys and amusement devices.
It is said that a Negro really invented the cotton gin, or gave to Ely Whitney, who was the patentee of it, the suggestions which aided in the completion of this invention. As early as 1834 a Negro, Henry Blair, of Maryland, secured a patent on a corn harvester.
Soon after the Dred Scott Decision in 1857 the Patent Office rendered a decision that a Negro could not take out a patent on an invention, but since 1862, when the decision was rescinded, no restrictions have been placed on the use of the office by Negroes and a great number of useful inventions have been patented by them.
Robert Pelham, of Detroit, an employee in the Census Bureau, has devised a machine that tabulates the statistics from the manufacturer’s schedules in a way that displaces a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically, speedily and with faultless precision. The returns in royalties from his invention, which is patented, greatly exceeds the income Mr. Pelham receives from the Government salary paid him for services in the office of the Census Bureau.
At the present time there are nearly 50,000 Negro business enterprises of various kinds, some requiring a knowledge of banking, insurance, manufacturing, undertaking and hospital training.
The combined business of these enterprises total over one billion dollars annually.
There are about 66 banks in all with a capital and surplus of over $2,000,000.00.