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We know of the famous African-American inventors of the past, Lewis H. Latimer who provided the filament that made Thomas Edison's light bulb burn so brightly; George Washington Carver, who developed peanut butter and countless other inventions from the peanut; and Garrett Morgan, who invented the first automated stoplight and gas mask. But, what about the inventors of today? We searched the country to find those special African-Americans whose creativity and ingenuity have, in one way or another, shaped our lives. Dr. Philip Emeagwali Research Scientist Saint Paul, Minnesota |
Dr. Patricia E. Bath!
is a world-renowned scientist who has dedicated most of her life to the prevention and treatment of blindness in African-Americans. She revolutionized, cataract surgery by inventing a laser called the Laserphaco Probe. She currently has four patents on this probe, covering the United states, Canada, Japan and Europe.
Dr. Thomas Mensah
Chairman
Supercond Technology Inc.
Norcross, Ga.
During the Gulf War, Smart Weapons, including the Patriot missile and laser guided bombs, made a significant difference in the outcome of the confrontation between the United States and Iraq. Dr. Thomas Mensah, inventor, scientist and entrepreneur, is leading the design of such advanced laser guided weapons. He holds seven patents in fiber optics, three on fiber optic guided missile technology and four on manufacturing fiber optics inexpensively. This will impact how we use a fax, electronic banking and other electronic communication.
James McLurkin
Research Scientist
Cambridge, Mass.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
James McLurkin!
is currently designing microbots that work together in accomplishing a particular task. Each robot has a small computer, three motors and 17 sensors. Inspiration for this research comes from ant colonies. An ant, which is virtually powerless as a single entity, can perform the most impossible tasks when a group of ants work together. Applications include foraging cluster bombs, remote surveillance, pipe inspection and even picking up crumbs off the floor.
Dr. Joycelyn Simpson
Research Scientist
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, Ma.
Dr. Joycelyn Simpson co-developed a novel class of high performance piezoelectric polymers which have superior properties over conventional materials. A piezoelectric material generates electricity when pressure is applied. The inventors envision that this new polymer technology may dramatically improve power generation by providing a new, low cost, environmentally safe source of electricity. An array of their new durable piezoelectric polymers, covering fives square miles subjected to pressure fluctuations generated by wind or ocean waves, could conceivably supply electricity for 7.5 million people at a cost of only two to four cents per kilo-watt hour.
Lonnie G. Johnson
President
Johnson Research & Development Co.
Smyrna, Ga.
GREAT AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS AND ENGINEERS
The following is table of contents in tribute of just some of the great African Americans who have made contributions to society. Their
inventions served as foundations for numerous ideas for the growing technological world in which we live. We salute them for their
efforts and their struggle.
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Benjamin Banneker
was an inventor, a mathemetician, an
astronomer, a surveyor, and an essayist. As an inventor, he built a
wooden clock which kept accurate titme until he died in 1802 at the age
of 75. This homemade clock is believed to have been the first clock
totaly built in America. Born free in ELlicott, Maryland, Banneker was a
self-taught man who used his mathematics skills to develop and publish a
widely used almanac which was issued each year frorm 1792 to 1806. He
spent many nights studying the stars in order to make his almanac as
accurate as possible. As a surveyor, he helped lay out the streets and
buildings of Washington D.C. And as an essayist, he wrote about the
evils of slavery.
James Forten invented a device which made it easier to handle the
large heavy sails of the big ships that sialed the seas before the days
of the steamship. As a boy he loved to go down to the docks along the
Delaware River and watch the ships maneuver up to the pier to unload
their cargo. He noticed how important the expert handling of the sails
was in guiding the ships. At the age of eight he began working in a
Philadelphia sail loft with his father, and some thirty years later
bought the sailmaking shop from the owner. During this time he not only
invented and perfected his device, but also learned all about the
sailmaking business. Due partly to his invention, his sail loft became
one of the most proposerous in the city
Jan Ernst Matzeliger!Up in Lynn, Massachusetts, near Boston, people in the shoe
business laughed at 25-year-old Jan Ernst Matzeliger when a word got out
that this former saiolr was secretly working on a machine that could
automatically make shoes, back in the 1870's. After all, the best brains
in the shoe business had invested thousands of dollars trying to develop
such a machine, and they had failed. "Couldn't be done," they said, as
they continued to make only 40 to 50 pair of shoes per day, by hand.
Finally, Jam, who was good at mechanical things decided he had developed
the kind of machine needed--a machine that could make thousands of pairs
of shoes in a day. In 1883, over ten years after he had started
developing his shoe machine, Matzeliger was granted a patent on it.
Granville
T. Woods!
Patents for over 35 electrical inventions were granted Granville
T. Woods, of Columbus, Ohio. Many of this electrical engineer's
inventions were said to General Electric, Westinghouse, and the Bell
Telephone Companyies. While Woods, who was born in Columbus, Ohio, April
23, 1856, invented more than a dozen devices to improve electric railway
cars, and many more for controlling the flow of electricity, his most
noted invention was a system for letting the engineer of a train know how
close his train was to others. This device helped to cut down accidents
and collisions between trains. Among his other top inventions were a
steam boiler furnace and ab automatic air brake used to slow or stop
trains.
Norbert Rillieux!
An engineer, Norbert Rillieux patented a sugar-refining process in
1864 which revolutionized this industry. Son of a slave mother and of the
master of the plantation where he was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in
1806, Rillieux was educated in France. He also taught school there at the
age of 24 ears. The sugar-refining process he developed greatly reduced
the cost of producing good sugar from sugar cane and from the sugar beet.
He also published papers on the uses of steam and on the steam engine. In
1854, because of discriminatio in Louisiana, he left that state for goo,
returning to France where he again turned to engineering inventions.
Andrew Beard! was born a slave on a plantation in Alabama. Before he
became an inventor he was a farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, a railroad
worker, and a businessman. In 1892 he patented his first invention, a
special kind of engine. It was while working in the railroad yards that
he got his idea for a device which would automatically hool railroad cars
together. This device was patented in 1897, and became known as the
"Jenny Coupler." It eliminated the dangerous job of hooking railroad
cars together by hand, and probably saved thousands of lives and limbs of
railroad workers. He improved this device in 1899, and later received
$50,000 for its patent rights.
Lewis H. Latimer!
Son of a runaway slave, Lewis Howard Latimer bacame an electrical
engineer who worked for Thomas A. Edison, inventor of the light bulb, and
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. Many of Latimer's
ideas, including the fine carbon wire which lights up, went into Edison's
light bulb. Latimer was the only African American, and one of the
original 28 persons who formed the "Edison Pioneers," a group dedicated
to keeping alive Edison's ideals. The Edison General Electric Company,
for which Latimer worked, in 1892, merged with a second firm and the new
company became the present General Electric Company. Latimer was also a
noted patent expert, draftsman, author, poet and musician.
Elijah McCoy!
A love of machines and tools led to a lifetime career and the awarding of
57 patents to Elijah Mc Coy, son of former slaves who had fled frm
Kenucky to Canada in search of freedom. Until Mc Coy developed a device
which made possible the automatic oiling of machinery used in
manufacturing, companies using such machines had to stop the machines
before oiling them. Oiling of machinery reduces the wear and tear of
friction. So popular did Mc Coy's invention become that person inspecting
new equipment generally asked if it contained the "real Mc Coy," meaning
Mc Coy's oiling device. Today, "real Mc Coy" is an expression is in the
American language meaning the "real thing.' In all, Mc Coy invented 23
oiling devices as well as many other useful inventions. He finally set up
his own manufacturing company to develop and sell his many inventions.
GARRETT A. MORGAN INVENTOR GALLERY!
was a prize-winning inventor who developed a safety
helmet breathing device widely used by firemen in many American cities in
the early 1900's. His invention became popular after he and his brother
used it to rescue over two dozen men who were trapped under Lake Erie, at
Cleveland, Ohio, when an explosion occurred in a tunnel which was under
construction. He was awarded a hold medal by the City of Cleveland for
his heroic rescue. He later received a gold medal at the Second
International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation, in New York, in 1914.
Morgan is best remembered for his invention of the automatic stop sign.
This invention, now called the traffic or "stop light" controls the flow
of vehicles through street intersections.
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER!
Probably the best known African American scientist and inventor is George
Washington Carver, who alone, nearly revolutionized agriculture in the
South. At a time when the South's major crop-cotton-was faced with total
destruction by the boll weevel beetle, Dr. Carver, through scientific
experiments showed the South that peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes
(yams), among other crops, should be planted, along with cotton. Thus, if
on crop failed, there would be others from which farmers could make
money. Known as "The Wizard of Tuskegee," Dr. carver developed hundreds
of products from the peanut, the soybean, the pecan nut, the sweet
potato, and even the weeds. Today, there are many schools and other
institutions named in memory of Dr. Carver.
H.C. Webb invented a machine which cleared away palmettos, an unwanted
kind of growth found in the farm fields of the southeastern region of the
United States. The device looked something like a three-wheeled plow, and
was pulled by a thirty-horsepower engine. It helped farmers to clear away
as much unwanted groth in one day as it normally took ten men 10 days to
clear away-about ten acres. The Webb Palmetto Grubbing Machine was
patented in 1917. Webb also invented a barrel stave machine and a special
kind of drill press but lost the rights to them because he did not have them
patented. But, during this period, hundreds of other African American
inventors developed labor-saving devices for which they did not receive
government patents.
Founder of a hospital whci still exists in Chicago, medical physician Dr,
Daniel H. Williams is credited with having performed the first
"open-heart" surgery July 9, 1893, long before this knid of surgery was
developed. Dr. Williams saved the life of a knofing victim by "sewing up
his heart." Working in a makeshift operating room too small for the
six-man operating team which helped him, he opened the patient's chest,
exposed the beating heart, and stitched the knife wound a fraction of an
inch from the heart without the aid of X-rays, blood transfusions or
modern "miracle drugs." On August 2, Dr. Williams operated again to
remove some fluid from the chest cavity. On August 30, the patient
walked out of the hospital, and was known to be alive and well 20 years
later.
FREDERICK M. JONES!
The first African American member of the American society of
Refrigeration Engineers, Frederick M. Jones held over 60 patents in a
variety of fields, 40 of them in refrigeration equioment. In 1912, he
built a sound system in a movie theater, and was then hired by a
manufacturer of movie sound systems. In 1939, he designed the first
working truck refrigerator system, which was patented in 1942. Today,
such refrigerators carry fresh meats and some vegetables across the
country. Among his other inventions was the first portable X-ray
machine, a self-starting gasoline motor, and the standard refrigerator
design for all Army and Marine field kitchens. Many of the devices that
deliver tickets and spill out change at movie box offices are Jone's
creations.
Carles H. Turner!
who obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of
Chicago in 1907, was noted for his knowledge of ants and bees. He
originated a way of watching and recording the habits of insects and
small animals, the way they act toward one another, and the way they
reacted to things that happened to them. A type of behavior in insects
is now calles "Turner's circling" after his detailed description.
Through forty-seven research papers which he published between 1892 and
1923, he showed how humans were a lot like animals and insects, and
helped the world better understand why man acts the way he does.
MADAM C. J. WALKER!
An outstanding research biologist, Dr. Ernest E. Just devoted a lifetime
of study and function of the cell(cytology), the smallest unit of the
body. His studies included how eggs are fertilized, how babies are born,
and how the cells of animals function. In 1915, he won the Spingarn
Medal, the highest award given by the NAACP to the person having done the
most during the year to advance the process of African Ameericann
people. He wrote two major books and more than sixty scientific papers
in his field. His book, The Biologu of the Cell Surface, which
was used in many colleges, represented his lifetime of research, and was
published in 1939, just two years before he died.
A physician and surgeon, Dr. Louis T. Wright originated a method of
operating on fractures about the knee joint, a brace for fractures of the
spine, and a vaccination against smallpox, and supervised the first test
of a miracle drug(aureomycin) on humans. He also advanced a new theory
on the treatment of skull fractures and engaged in early cancer
research. Graduating with highest honors from the Harvard Medical School
in 1915, he was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant in the Medical Section of
the Officers Reserve Corps in 1917, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant
Colonel in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 191, he became the first
African American to be appointed to a New York City Municipal
Hospital(Harlem Hospital) wherer he helped lower the death rate and
increase the professional standards.
William Augustus Hinton
William Augustus Hinton: Medical
William Augustus Hinton was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 15, 1883. After two years at the University of Kansas (1900-1902), he earned a Bachelor of Science from Harvard University in 1905. Lacking the funds for medical school, William Hinton taught at Walden University, Nashville, Tennessee, and in Langston, Oklahoma for four years. During the summer months he continued his studies in bacteriology and physiology at the University of Chicago. William Hinton entered Harvard Medical School in 1909 and earned a M.D. from Harvard Medical College (with honors) in 1912, completing his degree in only three years. (Aside: "The [Harvard] Medical School offered him a scholarship for Negro students, but Hinton refused the offer. In competition with the entire student body he won the Wigglesworth Scholarship and the Hayden Scholarship." Source: DNB p.315.) After graduation from Harvard Medical School in 1912, Hinton worked for the Wasserman Laboratory, which at that time was part of the Harvard Medical School. In the mornings he was a volunteer assistant tin the Department of Pathology of the Massachusetts General Hospital. At the Wasserman Laboratory, Hinton began teaching serological techniques. Dr. Hinton served as Assistant Director of the Division of Biologic Laboratories and chief of the Wasserman Laboratory when it was transferred from Harvard to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (1915). In 1918 he was appointed as instructor in preventive medicine and hygiene at the Harvard Medical School, while continuing his work as chief of the Wasserman Laboratory.
From 1921 to 1946 Hinton served as instructor in bacteriology and immunology at Harvard and as lecturer until 1949 when he was promoted to the ran k of clinical professor. Dr. William A. Hinton was the first black to become a professor at Harvard Medical School in its 313 years, where he taught Bacteriology for 36 years. Hinton retired in 1950 with the status of professor emeritus. Even after his retirement from Harvard he taught there for some time (Source: Boston Daily Globe, Sept. 15, 1952) and served until 1953 as physician-in-chief of the Department of Clinical Laboratories of the Boston Dispensary. He also taught at the Harvard School of Public Health, Tufts University Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, and for many years after 1919 was a lecturer at Simmons College, Boston. He was a special consultant to the U.S. Public Health Service and a consultant (1946-1949) at the Massachusetts School for Crippled Children, Boston.
Dr. Hinton is responsible for the Hinton test for syphilis, which was found to be as effective and, in some respects, superior to the Wasserman test. Dr. Hinton was responsible for the discovery of the Davies-Hinton test of blood and spinal fluid.
A specialist in the study and development of medicines to fight diseases,
Dr. William A. Hinton is best known for the Hinton-Davies test used to
detect the venereal disease, syphilis. In 1936, he wrote a text book on
his studies, and became recognized as one of the worlds foremost
authorities on the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis. Only three years
after getting his doctor's degree from Harvard Medical School in 1912, he
was made an instructor in preventive medicine and hygiene at his fortune
university. It is said that he could have made a fortune in private
practice, but he chose to serve humanity by working in the field of
public health.
Dr. Theodore K. Lawless was a skin specialist (dermatologist) who became
a millionaire form his studies, practice adn development of medicines.
He also contributed to the better understanding of syphilis, a venereal
disease; and leprosy, a disease which wastes away the muscles of the
body. Setting up his ofices in the heart of Chicago's Black community,
he established one of the largest and best known skin clinics in the
city. For many years, men and women and children, both balack and white,
crowded his waiting room from morning until night. But he still found
time to teach at Northwestern University, work with the staff of
Chicago's Provident Hospital, and share his knowledge with other
doctors. In 1954, he was awarded th NAACP's Spingarn Medal.
Meredtih Gourdine!
head of his own manufacturing firm in New Jersy, Meredtih Gourdine, an
engineering scientist , found a way to make high-voltage electricity from
gas. He and the other engineers in his company believe there are many
uses for this discovery in our everyday life. Some of them are:
refrigeration for preserving foods, supplying cheap power for heat and
light in homes, burning coal more efficiently, making sea water drinkable
by taking the salt out of it, making painting and coating processes
easier, and reducing the amount of pollutants in smoke. His company has
already made an exhaust purifying device for automobiles, devices for
measuring air pollution, and generators for power stations.
A mathematician, physicist and engineer, J. Ernest WIlkins, Jr.
!
contributed his skills mainly to the study and development of atomic
power. As a teenager, Wilkins attracted nationwide attention when he
finished college at 17, earned a masters degree on year later, and
received his doctorate degree from the University of Chicago at the age
of 19. For a time, he taught college mathemataics, and later worked in
the University of Chicago's mettalurgical laboratory. As a relatively
young man of 23, he was supplying the mathematical formulas for the
production of special space-probing telescopes. By the time he was 27 he
was part-owner of a firm which designed and developed nuclear reactors
for creating atomic power.,br>
People who have breathing problems may, in the future, give credit to
Rufus Stokes for helping to ease their problem. In 1968, Mr. Stokes was
granted a patent on an air purification device which reduced the gases
and ashes in smoke to a non-dangerous and invisible level. This not only
helps people, but also improves the health of plants and animals as well
as improving the appearance and durability of buildings, cars and other
things exposed to the air. After building and successfully testing
several models of his machine, Mr. Stokes, in 1973, constructed a small
domestic model and a large mobile model to show that his invention could
be used in many ways.
An electronic scientist and inventor, Otis Boykin !
devised the control
unit in artificial heart stimulators, invented a variable resistor device
used in many guided missiles, small components such as thick-film
resistors used in IBM computers, and many other devices including a
burgular-proof cah register and a chemical air filter. Starting as an
assistant in a laaboratory testing airplane automatic controls, Boykin
was soon developing a type of resistor now used in many computers,
radios, television sets and other electronically controlled devices.
Many products made from his discoveries are manufactured in Paris and
throughout Western Europe. One of his products was approved for use in
military hardware for the Common Market.
As a Colonel and surgeon in the Air Force, Dr. Marchbanks designed a gas
mask testing device, and discovered a method of measuring fatigue in
pilots who had been involved in aircraft accidents. He also did
important research in the control of noise in carious types of
airplanes. Before the first U.S. space shot (Project Mercury) he was
appointed project head physician, and was responsible for determining teh
effects of space flight on man, and for collecting medical information on
the astronauts before, during and after their flight. In the 1960's as
chief of environmental health services with United Aircraft Corporation,
he assisted in the designing of space suits and monitoring systems for
the Apollo moon shot.
As a materials research engineer for the Air FOrce, John Christian
developed and patented a variety of revolutionary lubricants that saved
pilots' lives in combat and contributed to the success of the astronaut's
mission on the moon. The lubricants, resembling cake frosting more than
oil, could withstand temperatures ranging from minus 50 to 600 degrees.
In Vietnam, when the helicopters' oil lines were punctured by ground
fire, the "soap" lubricants enabled them toe return to their base. They
were also used in the astronaut's back-pack life support systems, without
which there could have been no moon landing, and were used in the
four-wheel drive of the "moon-buggy" making it possible to extend their
moon exploration by 36 hours.
Astro-physicist Dr. George Carruthers was the principal scientist
responsible for the development of a special camera that made the trip to
the moon aboard the Apollo 16 in 1972. Called the "far-ultra-violet
camera/spectograph," the 50-pound, gol-plated unit was designed to study
the earth's upper atmosphere and other interplanetary conditions. More
than 200 frames of pictures were made of eleven selected targets. In
1973, another model of the camera was made for the Skylab 4 to take
pictures of a comet speeding toward the sun. Carruthers was interested
in science as a child and built his own telescope at the age of ten.
From the age of 25, he made significant contributions to the field of
electronic imaging and space astronomy.
A scientist and educator, Dr. Charles Buggs, of Brunswick, Georgia,
conducted special research on why some bacteria (germs) do not react to
certain medicines. In several articles, he presented his ideas on
penicillin and skin grafting, and the value of chemicals in treating
bone fractures. In 1944, he contributed some of the results of his
research to the world through 12 studies he helped to write. Three years
later he wrote an important article on how to use ger-killing chemicals
(antibiotics) to prevent and cure certain diseases. he also taught
college biology, and made studies and suggestions on premedical education
for African Americans. Dr. Buggs' research and teaching contributed to a
better understanding of health and of the human body.
Dr. Charles R. Drew Elementary
School Phone: 989-6030 Principal: Eileen Evans
Dr. Charles Richard Drew
The storing of human blood until it is needed to save someone's life was
the major contribution of Dr. Charles Drew to science and medicine.
He researched the nature of human blood and created what has become
known as "blood banks," places where blood is kept in a special form
(plasma) until needed by injured patients. In 1940, during World War
II, the British asked Dr. Drew to establish a blood bank program for
their country. After the war, he was appointed the first director of
the American Red Cross Blood Bank, supplying plasma to the United
States armed forces. He also bacme recognized as an outstanding
surgeon, teacher and public servant, and in 1944 was awarded the Spingarn Medal.
Most of all, he did not allow the racism he encountered to stop him from fulfilling his dreams. Woods died in New York on January 30th 1910.
BENJAMIN BANNEKER
(1731-1806)
(1766-1842)
(1852-1889)
(1856-1910)
(1806-1894)
(1849?-1921)
(1848-1928)
(1843-1929)
(1875-1963)
Wilcox and Gibbs chain stitch machine 1900-1910
Merryweather 'Kaskor' smoke helmet ca. 1930
Electric traffic lights, 1931
Gas-lit traffic signal, 1868
Modern traffic lights
Singer domestic lock-stitch sewing machine, ca. 1900-1910
Early World War I gas masks
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Morgan's Safety Hood
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World War I gas masks
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Patent drawings for Morgan's Safety Hood
Morgan's traffic signal
(1864-1943)
(1864-?)>
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(1858-1931)
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(1893-1961)
(1867-1923)
(1869-1919)
ENTREPRENEUR AND COSMETICS MANUFACTURER SHAMPOO
Before her invention, African American women had to straighten their hair
by placing the hair on a flat surface and then pressing it with a
clothing iron. After her invention was introduced, Sarah Breedlove
Walker, who was known as Madame C.J. Walker, became one of the first
American women of any race to become a millionaire through her own
efforts. Madame Walker invented a hair softener and a special
hair-straightening comb. Before her death in 1919, Madame Walker could
count over 2,000 agents who sold her ever-growing line of Walker
products and demonstrated the "Walker System" of treating hair. Her
efforts laid the fooundation for the cosmetics industry among African
Americans.
(1883-1941)
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(1891-1952)
NO AVAILABLE PICTURE
(1883-1959)
Source: "Heroes of Microbiology" (poster) -- American Association of Microbiologists (US)
Born: December 15, 1883
Died: 1959
Birthplace: Chicago, IL
(1891-1975)
NO PICTURE AVAILABLE
(1892-1971)
NO PICTURE AVAILABLE
(1929- )
(1923- )
(1922-1986)
NO PICTURE AVAILABLE
(1920-1982)
The Pacemaker is the grey circle in the man's shoulder
(1905-1973)
NO PICTURE AVAILABLE
(1927- )
NO PICTURE AVAILABLE
(1940- )
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(1906-1991)
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(1904-1950)
Silver Spring, MD 20905
Some of his other inventions include:
an electrical egg incubator that kept up to 50,000 eggs warm;
a steam boiler furnace;
a telephone transmitter with a longer range than other transmitters; and an electromechanical braking system.
