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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Colored Inventor
+       A Record of Fifty Years
+
+Author: Henry E. Baker
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2007 [EBook #21281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLORED INVENTOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Colored Inventor
+
+A RECORD OF FIFTY YEARS
+
+By HENRY E. BAKER. Assistant Examiner United States Patent Office
+
+
+[Illustration: HENRY E. BAKER.]
+
+
+
+
+The year 1913 marks the close of the first fifty years since Abraham
+Lincoln issued that famous edict known as the emancipation proclamation,
+by which physical freedom was vouchsafed to the slaves and the
+descendants of slaves in this country. And it would seem entirely fit
+and proper that those who were either directly or indirectly benefited
+by that proclamation should pause long enough at this period in their
+national life to review the past, recount the progress made, and see, if
+possible, what of the future is disclosed in the past.
+
+That the colored people in the United States have made substantial
+progress in the general spread of intelligence among them, and in
+elevating the tone of their moral life; in the acquisition of property;
+in the development and support of business enterprises, and in the
+professional activities, is a matter of quite common assent by those who
+have been at all observant on the subject. This fact is amply shown to
+be true by the many universities, colleges and schools organized,
+supported and manned by the race, by their attractive homes and cultured
+home life, found now in all parts of our country; by the increasing
+numbers of those of the race who are successfully engaging in
+professional life, and by the gradual advance the race is making toward
+business efficiency in many varied lines of business activity.
+
+It is not so apparent, however, to the general public that along the
+line of inventions also the colored race has made surprising and
+substantial progress; and that it has followed, even if "afar off," the
+footsteps of the more favored race. And it is highly important,
+therefore, that we should make note of what the race has achieved along
+this line to the end that proper credit may be accorded it as having
+made some contribution to our national progress.
+
+Standing foremost in the list of things that have actually done most to
+promote our national progress in all material ways is the item of
+inventions. Without inventions we should have had no agricultural
+implements with which to till the fertile fields of our vast continent;
+no mining machinery for recovering the rich treasure that for centuries
+lay hidden beneath our surface; no steamcar or steamboat for
+transporting the products of field and mine; no machinery for converting
+those products into other forms of commercial needs; no telegraph or
+telephone for the speedy transmission of messages, no means for
+discovering and controlling the various utilitarian applications of
+electricity; no one of those delicate instruments which enable the
+skilful surgeon of to-day to transform and renew the human body, and
+often to make life itself stand erect, as it were, in the very presence
+of death. Without inventions we could have none of those numerous
+instruments which to-day in the hands of the scientist enable him
+accurately to forecast the weather, to anticipate and provide against
+storms on land and at sea, to detect seismic disturbances and warn
+against the dangers incident to their repetition; and no wireless
+telegraphy with its manifold blessings to humanity.
+
+All these great achievements have come to us from the hand of the
+inventor. He it is who has enabled us to inhabit the air above us, to
+tunnel the earth beneath, explore the mysteries of the sea, and in a
+thousand ways, unknown to our forefathers, multiply human comforts and
+minimize human misery. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a single
+feature of our national progress along material lines that has not been
+vitalized by the touch of the inventor's genius.
+
+Into this vast yet specific field of scientific industry the colored man
+has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to
+his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding
+industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others
+in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new
+things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt
+them to new uses. We know that the colored man has accomplished
+something--indeed, a very great deal--in the field of invention, but it
+would be of the first importance to us now to know exactly what he has
+done, and the commercial value of his productions. Unfortunately for us,
+however, this can never be known in all its completeness.
+
+A very recent experiment in the matter of collecting information on this
+subject has disclosed some remarkably striking facts, not the least
+interesting of which is the very widespread belief among those who ought
+to know better that the colored man has done absolutely nothing of value
+in the line of invention. This is but a reflex of the opinions variously
+expressed by others at different times on the subject of the capacity of
+the colored man for mental work of a high order. Thomas Jefferson's
+remark that no colored man could probably be found who was capable of
+taking in and comprehending Euclid, and that none had made any
+contribution to the civilization of the world through his art, would
+perhaps appear somewhat excusable when viewed in the light of the
+prevailing conditions in his day, and on which, of course, his judgment
+was based; but even at that time Jefferson knew something of the
+superior quality of Benjamin Banneker's mental equipment, for it is on
+record that they exchanged letters on that subject.
+
+Coming down to a later day, when our race as a whole had shared, to some
+extent at least, in the progress of learning, so well informed an
+exponent of popular thought as Henry Ward Beecher is said to have
+declared that the whole African race in its native land could be
+obliterated from the face of the earth without loss to civilization, and
+yet Beecher knew, or should have known, of the scholarly Dr. Blyden, of
+Liberia, who was at one time president of the college of Liberia at
+Monrovia, and minister from his country to the Court of St. James, and
+whose contributions to the leading magazines of Europe and America were
+eagerly accepted and widely read on both continents.
+
+Less than ten years ago, in a hotly contested campaign in the State of
+Maryland, a popular candidate for Congress remarked, in one of his
+speeches, that the colored race should be denied the right to vote
+because "none of them had ever evinced sufficient capacity to justify
+such a privilege," and that "no one of the race had ever yet reached the
+dignity of an inventor." Yet, at that very moment, there was in the
+Library of Congress in Washington a book of nearly 500 pages containing
+a list of nearly 400 patents representing the inventions of colored
+people.
+
+Only a few years later a leading newspaper in the city of Richmond, Va.,
+made the bold statement that of the many thousands of patents annually
+granted by our government to the inventors of our country, "not a single
+patent had ever been granted to a colored man." Of course this statement
+was untrue, but what of that? It told its tale, and made its
+impression--far and wide; and it is incumbent upon our race now to
+outrun that story, to correct that impression, and to let the world know
+the truth.
+
+In a recent correspondence that has reached nearly two-thirds of the
+more than 12,000 registered patent attorneys in this country, who are
+licensed to prosecute applications for patents before the Patent Office
+at Washington, it is astonishing to have nearly 2,500 of them reply that
+they never heard of a colored inventor, and not a few of them add that
+they never expect to hear of one. One practising attorney, writing from
+a small town in Tennessee, said that he not only has never heard of a
+colored man inventing anything, but that he and the other lawyers to
+whom he passed the inquiry in that locality were "inclined to regard the
+whole subject as a joke." And this, remember, comes from practising
+lawyers, presumably men of affairs, and of judgment, and who keep
+somewhat ahead of the average citizen in their close observation of the
+trend of things.
+
+Now there ought not to be anything strange or unbelievable in the fact
+that in any given group of more than 10,000,000 human beings, of
+whatever race, living in our age, in our country, and developing under
+our laws, one can find multiplied examples of every mental bent, of
+every stage of mental development, and of every evidence of mental
+perception that could be found in any other similar group of human
+beings of any other race; and yet, so set has become the traditional
+attitude of one class in our country toward the other class that the one
+class continually holds up before its eyes an imaginary boundary line in
+all things mental, beyond which it seems unwilling to admit that it is
+possible for the other class to go.
+
+Under this condition of the general class thought in our country it has
+become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined
+power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought,
+that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the
+beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to
+the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no place for
+himself in the ranks of those who have made this nation the foremost
+nation of the world in the number and character of its inventions.
+
+That this conclusion with reference to the colored man's inventive
+faculty is wholly untrue I will endeavor now to show.
+
+In the world of invention the colored man has pursued the same line of
+activity that other men have followed; he has been spurred by the same
+necessity that has confronted other men, namely, the need for some
+device by which to minimize the exactions of his daily toil, to save his
+time, conserve his strength and multiply the results of his labor. Like
+other men, the colored man sought first to invent the thing that was
+related to his earlier occupations, and as his industrial pursuits
+became more varied his inventive genius widened correspondingly. Thus we
+find that the first recorded instances of patents having been granted to
+a colored man--and the only ones specifically so designated--are the two
+patents on corn harvesters which were granted in 1834 and 1836 to one
+Henry Blair, of Maryland, presumably a "free person of color," as the
+law was so construed at that time as to bar the issuance of a patent to
+a slave.
+
+With the exception of these two instances the public records of the
+Patent Office give absolutely no hint as to whether any one of the more
+than 1,000,000 patents granted by this government to meritorious
+inventors from all parts of the world has been granted to a colored
+inventor. The records make clear enough distinctions as to nationality,
+but absolutely none as to race. This policy of having the public records
+distinguish between inventors of different nationalities only is a
+distinct disadvantage to the colored race in this country.
+
+If the inventors of England or France or Germany or Italy, or any other
+country, desire to ascertain the number and character of the inventions
+patented to the citizens of their respective countries, it would require
+but a few hours of work to get exact statistics on the subject, but not
+so with the colored inventor. Here, as elsewhere, he has a hard road to
+travel.
+
+In fact, it seems absolutely impossible to get even an approximately
+correct answer to that question for our race. Whatever of statistics one
+is able to get on this subject must be obtained almost wholly in a
+haphazard sort of way from persons not employed in the Patent Office,
+and who must, in the great majority of cases, rely on their memory to
+some extent for the facts they give. Under such circumstances as these
+it is easy to see the large amount of labor involved in getting up such
+statistics as may be relied upon as being true.
+
+There have been two systematic efforts made by the Patent Office itself
+to get this information, one of them being in operation at the present
+time. The effort is made through a circular letter addressed to the
+thousands of patent attorneys throughout the country, who come in
+contact often with inventors as their clients, to popular and
+influential newspapers, to conspicuous citizens of both races, and to
+the owners of large manufacturing industries where skilled mechanics of
+both races are employed, all of whom are asked to report what they
+happen to know on the subject under inquiry.
+
+The answers to this inquiry cover a wide range of guesswork, many mere
+rumors and a large number of definite facts. These are all put through
+the test of comparison with the official records of the Patent Office,
+and this sifting process has evolved such facts as form the basis of the
+showing presented here.
+
+There is just one other source of information which, though its yield of
+facts is small, yet makes up in reliability what it lacks in
+numerousness; and that is where the inventor himself comes to the Patent
+Office to look after his invention. This does not often happen, but it
+rarely leaves anything to the imagination when it does happen.
+
+Sometimes it has been difficult to get this information by
+correspondence even from colored inventors themselves. Many of them
+refuse to acknowledge that their inventions are in any way identified
+with the colored race, on the ground, presumably, that the publication
+of that fact might adversely affect the commercial value of their
+invention; and in view of the prevailing sentiment in many sections of
+our country, it cannot be denied that much reason lies at the bottom of
+such conclusion.
+
+Notwithstanding the difficulties above mentioned as standing in the way
+of getting at the whole truth, something over 1,200 instances have been
+gathered as representing patents granted to colored inventors, but so
+far only about 800 of these have been verified as definitely belonging
+to that class.
+
+These 800 patents tell a wonderful story of the progress of the race in
+the mastery of the science of mechanics. They cover inventions of more
+or less importance in all the branches of mechanics, in chemical
+compounds, in surgical instruments, in electrical utilities, and in the
+fine arts as well.
+
+From the numerous statements made by various attorneys to the effect
+that they have had several colored clients whose names they could not
+recall, and whose inventions they could not identify on their books, it
+is practically certain that the nearly 800 verified patents do not
+represent more than one-half of those that have been actually granted to
+colored inventors, and that the credit for these must perhaps forever
+lie hidden in the unbreakable silence of official records.
+
+But before directing attention specifically to some of the very
+interesting details disclosed by this latest investigation into the
+subject, let us consider for a brief moment a few of the inventions
+which colored men have made, but for which no patents appear to be of
+record.
+
+I should place foremost among these that wonderful clock constructed by
+our first astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, of Maryland. Banneker's span of
+earthly existence covered the 75 years from 1731 to 1806. His parentage
+was of African and English origin, and his mental equipment was far
+above the average of his day and locality in either race. Aside from his
+agricultural pursuits, on which he relied for a livelihood, he devoted
+his time mainly to scientific and mechanical studies, producing two
+things by which he will be long remembered: An almanac and a clock. The
+latter he constructed with crude tools, and with no knowledge of any
+other timepiece except a watch and a sundial; yet the clock he made was
+so perfect in every detail of its mechanical construction, so accurate
+in the mathematical calculations involved, that it struck the hours with
+faultless precision for twenty years, and was the mechanical wonder of
+his day and locality.
+
+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.
+
+Mr. Woods is, perhaps, the best known of all the inventors whose
+achievements redound to the credit of our race; and in his passing away
+he has left us the rich legacy of a life successfully devoted to the
+cause of progress.
+
+[Illustration: ELIJAH McCOY.]
+
+In the prolific yield of his inventive genius, Elijah McCoy, of Detroit,
+stands next to Granville T. Woods.
+
+So far as is ascertainable from the office records Mr. McCoy obtained
+his first patent in July, 1872, and the last patent was granted to him
+in July, 1912. During the intervening forty years he continued to invent
+one thing after another, completing a record of nearly forty patents on
+as many separate and distinct inventions. His inventions, like those of
+Woods', cover a wide range of subjects, but relate particularly to the
+scheme of lubricating machinery. He is regarded as the pioneer in the
+art of steadily supplying oil to machinery in intermittent drops from a
+cup so as to avoid the necessity for stopping the machine to oil it. His
+lubricating cup was in use for years on stationary and locomotive
+machinery in the West, including the great railway locomotives, the
+boiler engines of the steamers on the Great Lakes, on transatlantic
+steamships, and in many of our leading factories. McCoy's lubricating
+cups were famous thirty years ago as a necessary equipment in all
+up-to-date machinery, and it would be rather interesting to know how
+many of the thousands of machinists who used them daily had any idea
+then that they were the invention of a colored man.
+
+Another inventor whose patents occupy a conspicuous place in the records
+of the Patent Office, and whose achievements in that line stand recorded
+as a credit to the colored man, is Mr. William B. Purvis, of
+Philadelphia. His inventions also cover a variety of subjects, but are
+directed mainly along a single line of experiment and improvement. He
+began, in 1882, the invention of machines for making paper bags, and his
+improvements in this line of machinery are covered by a dozen patents;
+and a half dozen other patents granted Mr. Purvis include three patents
+on electric railways, one on a fountain pen, another on a magnetic
+car-balancing device, and still another for a cutter for roll holders.
+
+Another very interesting instance of an inventor whose genius for
+creating new things is constantly active, producing results that express
+themselves in terms of dollars for himself and others, is that of Mr.
+Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey. Mr. Dickinson's specialty is in
+the line of musical instruments, particularly the piano. He began more
+than fifteen years ago to invent devices for automatically playing the
+piano, and is at present in the employ of a large piano factory, where
+his various inventions in piano-player mechanism are eagerly adopted in
+the construction of some of the finest player pianos on the market. He
+has more than a dozen patents to his credit already, and is still
+devoting his energies to that line of invention.
+
+The company with which he is identified is one of the very largest
+corporations of its kind in the world, and it is no little distinction
+to have one of our race occupy so significant a relation to it, and to
+hold it by the sheer force of a trained and active intellect.
+
+Mr. Frank J. Ferrell, of New York, has obtained about a dozen patents
+for his inventions, the larger portion of them being for improvements in
+valves for steam engines.
+
+Mr. Benjamin F. Jackson, of Massachusetts, is the inventor of a dozen
+different improvements in heating and lighting devices, including a
+controller for a trolley wheel.
+
+Mr. Charles V. Richey, of Washington, has obtained about a dozen patents
+on his inventions, the last of which was a most ingenious device for
+registering the calls on a telephone and detecting the unauthorized use
+of that instrument. This particular patent was only recently taken out
+by Mr. Richey, and he has organized a company for placing the invention
+on the market, with fine prospects of success.
+
+Hon. George W. Murray, of South Carolina, former member of Congress from
+that State, has received eight patents for his inventions in
+agricultural implements, including mostly such different attachments as
+readily adapt a single implement to a variety of uses.
+
+Henry Creamer, of New York, has made seven different inventions in steam
+traps, covered by as many patents, and Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, has
+about the same number to his credit for inventions in car-coupling
+devices.
+
+Mr. William Douglass, of Kansas, was granted about a half dozen patents
+for various inventions in harvesting machines. One of his patents, that
+one numbered 789,010, and dated May 2, 1905, for a self-binding
+harvester, is conspicuous in the records of the Patent Office for the
+complicated and intricate character of the machine, for the extensive
+drawings required to illustrate it and the lengthy specifications
+required to explain it--there being thirty-seven large sheets of
+mechanical drawings and thirty-two printed pages of descriptive matter,
+including the 166 claims drawn to cover the novel points presented. This
+particular patent is, in these respects, quite unique in the class here
+considered.
+
+Mr. James Doyle, of Pittsburgh, has obtained several patents for his
+inventions, one of them being for an automatic serving system. This
+latter device is a scheme for dispensing with the use of waiters in
+dining rooms, restaurants and at railroad lunch counters. It was
+recently exhibited with the Pennsylvania Exposition Society's exhibits
+at Pittsburgh, where it attracted widespread attention from the press
+and the public. The model used on that occasion is said to have cost
+nearly $2,000.
+
+In the civil service at Washington there are several colored men who
+have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by
+the mechanical problems arising in their daily occupations.
+
+Mr. Shelby J. Davidson, of Kentucky, a clerk in the office of the
+Auditor for the Post Office Department, operated a machine for
+tabulating and totalizing the quarterly accounts which were
+regularly submitted by the postmasters of the country. Mr.
+Davidson's attention was first directed to the loss in time through
+the necessity for periodically stopping to manually dispose of the
+paper coming from the machine. He invented a rewind device which
+served as an attachment for automatically taking up the paper as it
+issued from the machine, and adapted it for use again on the reverse
+side, thus effecting a very considerable economy of time and
+material. His main invention, however, was a novel attachment for
+adding machines which was designed to automatically include the
+government fee, as well as the amount sent, when totalizing the
+money orders in the reports submitted by postmasters. This was a
+distinct improvement in the efficiency and value of the machine he
+was operating and the government granted him patents on both
+inventions. His talents were recognized not only by the office in
+which he was employed by promotion in rank and pay, but also in a
+very significant way by the large factory which turned out the
+adding machines the government was using. Mr. Davidson has since
+resigned his position and is now engaged in the practice of the law
+in Washington, D.C.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT A. PELHAM.]
+
+Mr. Robert Pelham, of Detroit, is similarly employed in the Census
+Bureau, where his duties include the compilation of groups of statistics
+on sheets from data sent into the office from the thousands of
+manufacturers of the country. Unlike most of the other men in the
+departmental service, Mr. Pelham seemed anxious to get through with his
+job quickly, for he devised a machine used as an adjunct in tabulating
+the statistics from the manufacturers' schedules in a way that displaced
+a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically,
+speedily and with faultless precision, when operated under Mr. Pelham's
+skilful direction. Mr. Pelham has also been granted a patent for his
+invention, and the proved efficiency of his devices induced the United
+States government to lease them from him, paying him a royalty for their
+use, in addition to his salary for operating them.
+
+Mr. Pelham's mechanical genius is evidently "running in the family," for
+his oldest son, now a high-school youth, has distinguished himself by
+his experiments in wireless telegraphy, and is one of the very few
+colored boys in Washington holding a regular license for operating the
+wireless.
+
+Mr. W. A. Lavalette, of the Government Printing Office, the largest
+printing establishment in the world, began his career as a printer there
+years before the development of that art called into use the wonderful
+machines employed in it to-day; and one of his first efforts was to
+devise a printing machine superior to the pioneer type used at that
+time. This was in 1879, and he succeeded that year in inventing and
+patenting a printing machine that was a notable novelty in its day,
+though it has, of course, long ago been superseded by others.
+
+I have reserved for the last the name and work of Jan Matzeliger, of
+Massachusetts. Although there are barely half a dozen patents standing
+in his name on the records of the office, and his name is little known
+to the general public, there are, I think, some points in his career
+that easily make him conspicuous above all the rest, and I have found
+the story really inspiring.
+
+As a very young man Matzeliger worked in a shoe shop in Lynn, Mass.,
+serving his apprenticeship at that trade. Seeking, in the true spirit of
+the inventor, to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew
+before, he devised the first complete machine ever invented for
+performing automatically all the operations involved in attaching soles
+to shoes. Other machines had previously been made for performing a part
+of these operations, but Matzeliger's machine was the only one then
+known to the mechanical world that could simultaneously hold the last in
+place to receive the leather, move it forward step by step so that other
+co-acting parts might draw the leather over the heel, properly punch and
+grip the upper and draw it down over the last, plait the leather
+properly at the heel and toe, feed the nails to the driving point, hold
+them in position while being driven, and then discharge the completely
+soled shoe from the machine, everything being done automatically, and
+requiring less than a minute to complete a single shoe.
+
+This wonderful achievement marked the beginning of a distinct revolution
+in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and
+attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his
+invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack
+of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he
+passed away.
+
+He had done his work, however, under the keen eye of the shrewd Yankees,
+and these were quick to see the immense commercial importance of the
+step he had accomplished. One of these bought the patent and all of the
+stock that he could find of the company organized by Matzeliger. This
+fortunate purchase laid the foundation for the organization of the
+United Shoe Machinery Company, the largest and richest corporation of
+the kind in the world. (See, in _Munsey's Magazine_ of August, 1912, on
+page 722, biographical sketch of Mr. Sidney Winslow, millionaire head
+of the United Shoe Machinery Company.)
+
+Some idea may be had of the magnitude of this giant industry, which is
+thus shown to have grown directly out of the inventions of a young
+colored man, by recalling the fact that the corporation represents the
+consolidation of forty-one different smaller companies, that its
+factories cover twenty-one acres of ground, that it gives employment
+daily to 4,200 persons, that its working capital is quoted at
+$20,860,000, and that it controls more than 300 patents representing
+improvements in the machines it produces. From an article published in
+the Lynn (Mass.) _News_, of October 3, 1889, it appears that the United
+Shoe Machinery Company, above mentioned, established at Lynn a school,
+the only one of its kind in the world, where boys are taught exclusively
+to operate the Matzeliger type of machine; that a class of about 200
+boys and young men are graduated from this school annually and sent out
+to various parts of the world to instruct others in the art of handling
+this machine.
+
+Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church
+in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this
+church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years
+afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering
+the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon
+inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the
+patent under the management of the large company then controlling it.
+The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to
+pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the
+canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service
+of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of
+their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense
+congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church,
+read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J.
+Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans
+13:8--"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the
+hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in
+the hearts of those present.
+
+There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is
+ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he
+had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is
+irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified
+copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's
+death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."
+
+Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a
+too kind biographer, writing of him in the _Cosmopolitan_ in April,
+1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr.
+Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such
+ethnological errancy.
+
+Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the
+criticism that his machine was not perfect, requiring subsequent
+improvements to complete it and make it commercially valuable.
+Matzeliger was as truly a pioneer, blazing the way for a great
+industrial triumph, as was Whitney, or Howe, or Watt, or Fulton, or any
+other one of the scores of pioneers in the field of mechanical genius.
+The cotton gin of to-day is, of course, not the cotton gin first given
+to the world by Whitney, but the essential principles of its
+construction are found clearly outlined in Whitney's machine. The
+complex and intricate sewing machine of to-day, with its various
+attachments to meet the needs of the modern seamstress, is not the crude
+machine that came from the brain of Elias Howe; the giant locomotives
+that now speedily cover the transcontinental distance between New York
+and San Francisco bear but slight resemblance to the engine that
+Stephenson first gave us. In fact, the first productions of all these
+pioneers, while they disclosed the principles and laid the foundations
+upon which to build, resemble the later developments only "as mists
+resemble rain;" but these pioneers make up the army of capable men whose
+toil and trial, whose brawn and brain, whose infinite patience and
+indomitable courage have placed this nation of ours in the very front
+rank of the world's inventors; and, standing there among them, with his
+name indelible, is our dark-skinned brother, the patient, resourceful
+Matzeliger.
+
+In the credit here accorded our race for its achievements in the field
+of invention our women as well as our men are entitled to share. With an
+industrial field necessarily more circumscribed than that occupied by
+our men, and therefore with fewer opportunities and fewer reasons, as
+well, for exercising the inventive faculty, they have, nevertheless,
+made a remarkably creditable showing. The record shows that more than
+twenty colored women have been granted patents for their inventions, and
+that these inventions cover also a wide range of subjects--artistic,
+utilitarian, fanciful.
+
+The foregoing facts are here presented as a part only of the record made
+by the race in the field of invention for the first half century of our
+national life. We can never know the whole story. But we know enough to
+feel sure that if others knew the story even as we ourselves know it, it
+would present us in a somewhat different light to the judgment of our
+fellow men, and, perhaps, make for us a position of new importance in
+the industrial activities of our country. This great consummation,
+devoutly to be wished, may form the story of the next fifty years of our
+progress along these specific lines, so that some one in the distant
+future, looking down the rugged pathway of the years, may see this race
+of ours coming up, step by step, into the fullest possession of our
+industrial, economic and intellectual emancipation.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+The writer has in preparation, for early publication, a book which will
+deal more in detail with the subject of this pamphlet, presenting the
+names of all inventors, so far as ascertained, with the titles of their
+inventions and the dates and numbers of their patents, together with
+brief biographical sketches of many of the more active inventors.
+
+
+
+Published by THE CRISIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+Copyrighted, 1913, by Henry E. Baker
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Colored Inventor
+       A Record of Fifty Years
+
+Author: Henry E. Baker
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2007 [EBook #21281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLORED INVENTOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>The Colored Inventor</h1>
+
+<p class="subhead1">A RECORD OF FIFTY YEARS</p>
+
+<p class="subhead2">By HENRY E. BAKER. Assistant Examiner United States Patent Office</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span style="font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold;">The</span> year 1913 marks the close of the first fifty years since Abraham
+Lincoln issued that famous edict known as the emancipation proclamation,
+by which physical freedom was vouchsafed to the slaves and the
+descendants of slaves in this country. And it would seem entirely fit
+and proper that those who were either directly or indirectly benefited
+by that proclamation should pause long enough at this period in their
+national life to review the past, recount the progress made, and see, if
+possible, what of the future is disclosed in the past.</p>
+
+<p>That the colored people in the United States have made substantial
+progress in the general spread of intelligence among them, and in
+elevating the tone of their moral life; in the acquisition of property;
+in the development and support of business enterprises, and in the
+professional activities, is a matter of quite common assent by those who
+have been at all observant on the subject. This fact is amply shown to
+be true by the many universities, colleges and schools organized,
+supported and manned by the race, by their attractive homes and cultured
+home life, found now in all parts of our country; by the increasing
+numbers of those of the race who are successfully engaging in
+professional life, and by the gradual advance the race is making toward
+business efficiency in many varied lines of business activity.</p>
+
+<p>It is not so apparent, however, to the general public that along the
+line of inventions also the colored race has made surprising and
+substantial progress; and that it has followed, even if "afar off," the
+footsteps of the more favored race. And it is highly important,
+therefore, that we should make note of what the race has achieved along
+this line to the end that proper credit may be accorded it as having
+made some contribution to our national progress.</p>
+
+<p>Standing foremost in the list of things that have actually done most to
+promote our national progress in all material ways is the item of
+inventions. Without inventions we should have had no agricultural
+implements with which to till the fertile fields of our vast continent;
+no mining machinery for recovering the rich treasure that for centuries
+lay hidden beneath our surface; no steamcar or steamboat for
+transporting the products of field and mine; no machinery for converting
+those products into other forms of commercial needs; no telegraph or
+telephone for the speedy transmission of messages, no means for
+discovering and controlling the various utilitarian applications of
+electricity; no one of those delicate instruments which enable the
+skilful surgeon of to-day to transform and renew the human body, and
+often to make life itself stand erect, as it were, in the very presence
+of death. Without inventions we could have none of those numerous
+instruments which to-day in the hands of the scientist enable him
+accurately to forecast the weather, to anticipate and provide against
+storms on land and at sea, to detect seismic disturbances and warn
+against the dangers incident to their repetition; and no wireless
+telegraphy with its manifold blessings to humanity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/baker.jpg" width="400" height="530" alt="portrait of Henry E. Baker" title="" />
+<span class="caption">HENRY E. BAKER</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All these great achievements have come to us from the hand of the
+inventor. He it is who has enabled us to inhabit the air above us, to
+tunnel the earth beneath, explore the mysteries of the sea, and in a
+thousand ways, unknown to our forefathers, multiply human comforts and
+minimize human misery. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a single
+feature of our national progress along material lines that has not been
+vitalized by the touch of the inventor's genius.</p>
+
+<p>Into this vast yet specific field of scientific industry the colored man
+has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to
+his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding
+industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others
+in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new
+things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt
+them to new uses. We know that the colored man has accomplished
+something&mdash;indeed, a very great deal&mdash;in the field of invention, but it
+would be of the first importance to us now to know exactly what he has
+done, and the commercial value of his productions. Unfortunately for us,
+however, this can never be known in all its completeness.</p>
+
+<p>A very recent experiment in the matter of collecting information on this
+subject has disclosed some remarkably striking facts, not the least
+interesting of which is the very widespread belief among those who ought
+to know better that the colored man has done absolutely nothing of value
+in the line of invention. This is but a reflex of the opinions variously
+expressed by others at different times on the subject of the capacity of
+the colored man for mental work of a high order. Thomas Jefferson's
+remark that no colored man could probably be found who was capable of
+taking in and comprehending Euclid, and that none had made any
+contribution to the civilization of the world through his art, would
+perhaps appear somewhat excusable when viewed in the light of the
+prevailing conditions in his day, and on which, of course, his judgment
+was based; but even at that time Jefferson knew something of the
+superior quality of Benjamin Banneker's mental equipment, for it is on
+record that they exchanged letters on that subject.</p>
+
+<p>Coming down to a later day, when our race as a whole had shared, to some
+extent at least, in the progress of learning, so well informed an
+exponent of popular thought as Henry Ward Beecher is said to have
+declared that the whole African race in its native land could be
+obliterated from the face of the earth without loss to civilization, and
+yet Beecher knew, or should have known, of the scholarly Dr. Blyden, of
+Liberia, who was at one time president of the college of Liberia at
+Monrovia, and minister from his country to the Court of St. James, and
+whose contributions to the leading magazines of Europe and America were
+eagerly accepted and widely read on both continents.</p>
+
+<p>Less than ten years ago, in a hotly contested campaign in the State of
+Maryland, a popular candidate for Congress remarked, in one of his
+speeches, that the colored race should be denied the right to vote
+because "none of them had ever evinced sufficient capacity to justify
+such a privilege," and that "no one of the race had ever yet reached the
+dignity of an inventor." Yet, at that very moment, there was in the
+Library of Congress in Washington a book of nearly 500 pages containing
+a list of nearly 400 patents representing the inventions of colored
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few years later a leading newspaper in the city of Richmond, Va.,
+made the bold statement that of the many thousands of patents annually
+granted by our government to the inventors of our country, "not a single
+patent had ever been granted to a colored man." Of course this statement
+was untrue, but what of that? It told its tale, and made its
+impression&mdash;far and wide; and it is incumbent upon our race now to
+outrun that story, to correct that impression, and to let the world know
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>In a recent correspondence that has reached nearly two-thirds of the
+more than 12,000 registered patent attorneys in this country, who are
+licensed to prosecute applications for patents before the Patent Office
+at Washington, it is astonishing to have nearly 2,500 of them reply that
+they never heard of a colored inventor, and not a few of them add that
+they never expect to hear of one. One practising attorney, writing from
+a small town in Tennessee, said that he not only has never heard of a
+colored man inventing anything, but that he and the other lawyers to
+whom he passed the inquiry in that locality were "inclined to regard the
+whole subject as a joke." And this, remember, comes from practising
+lawyers, presumably men of affairs, and of judgment, and who keep
+somewhat ahead of the average citizen in their close observation of the
+trend of things.</p>
+
+<p>Now there ought not to be anything strange or unbelievable in the fact
+that in any given group of more than 10,000,000 human beings, of
+whatever race, living in our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> age, in our country, and developing under
+our laws, one can find multiplied examples of every mental bent, of
+every stage of mental development, and of every evidence of mental
+perception that could be found in any other similar group of human
+beings of any other race; and yet, so set has become the traditional
+attitude of one class in our country toward the other class that the one
+class continually holds up before its eyes an imaginary boundary line in
+all things mental, beyond which it seems unwilling to admit that it is
+possible for the other class to go.</p>
+
+<p>Under this condition of the general class thought in our country it has
+become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined
+power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought,
+that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the
+beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to
+the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no place for
+himself in the ranks of those who have made this nation the foremost
+nation of the world in the number and character of its inventions.</p>
+
+<p>That this conclusion with reference to the colored man's inventive
+faculty is wholly untrue I will endeavor now to show.</p>
+
+<p>In the world of invention the colored man has pursued the same line of
+activity that other men have followed; he has been spurred by the same
+necessity that has confronted other men, namely, the need for some
+device by which to minimize the exactions of his daily toil, to save his
+time, conserve his strength and multiply the results of his labor. Like
+other men, the colored man sought first to invent the thing that was
+related to his earlier occupations, and as his industrial pursuits
+became more varied his inventive genius widened correspondingly. Thus we
+find that the first recorded instances of patents having been granted to
+a colored man&mdash;and the only ones specifically so designated&mdash;are the two
+patents on corn harvesters which were granted in 1834 and 1836 to one
+Henry Blair, of Maryland, presumably a "free person of color," as the
+law was so construed at that time as to bar the issuance of a patent to
+a slave.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of these two instances the public records of the
+Patent Office give absolutely no hint as to whether any one of the more
+than 1,000,000 patents granted by this government to meritorious
+inventors from all parts of the world has been granted to a colored
+inventor. The records make clear enough distinctions as to nationality,
+but absolutely none as to race. This policy of having the public records
+distinguish between inventors of different nationalities only is a
+distinct disadvantage to the colored race in this country.</p>
+
+<p>If the inventors of England or France or Germany or Italy, or any other
+country, desire to ascertain the number and character of the inventions
+patented to the citizens of their respective countries, it would require
+but a few hours of work to get exact statistics on the subject, but not
+so with the colored inventor. Here, as elsewhere, he has a hard road to
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it seems absolutely impossible to get even an approximately
+correct answer to that question for our race. Whatever of statistics one
+is able to get on this subject must be obtained almost wholly in a
+haphazard sort of way from persons not employed in the Patent Office,
+and who must, in the great majority of cases, rely on their memory to
+some extent for the facts they give. Under such circumstances as these
+it is easy to see the large amount of labor involved in getting up such
+statistics as may be relied upon as being true.</p>
+
+<p>There have been two systematic efforts made by the Patent Office itself
+to get this information, one of them being in operation at the present
+time. The effort is made through a circular letter addressed to the
+thousands of patent attorneys throughout the country, who come in
+contact often with inventors as their clients, to popular and
+influential newspapers, to conspicuous citizens of both races, and to
+the owners of large manufacturing industries where skilled mechanics of
+both races are employed, all of whom are asked to report what they
+happen to know on the subject under inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>The answers to this inquiry cover a wide range of guesswork, many mere
+rumors and a large number of definite facts. These are all put through
+the test of comparison with the official records of the Patent Office,
+and this sifting process has evolved such facts as form the basis of the
+showing presented here.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/mccoy.jpg" width="400" height="552" alt="portrait of Elijah McCoy" title="" />
+<span class="caption">ELIJAH McCOY</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is just one other source of information which, though its yield of
+facts is small, yet makes up in reliability what it lacks in
+numerousness; and that is where the inventor himself comes to the Patent
+Office to look after his invention. This does not often happen, but it
+rarely leaves anything to the imagination when it does happen.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes it has been difficult to get this information by
+correspondence even from colored inventors themselves. Many of them
+refuse to acknowledge that their inventions are in any way identified
+with the colored race, on the ground, presumably, that the publication
+of that fact might adversely affect the commercial value of their
+invention; and in view of the prevailing sentiment in many sections of
+our country, it cannot be denied that much reason lies at the bottom of
+such conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the difficulties above mentioned as standing in the way
+of getting at the whole truth, something over 1,200 instances have been
+gathered as representing patents granted to colored inventors, but so
+far only about 800 of these have been verified as definitely belonging
+to that class.</p>
+
+<p>These 800 patents tell a wonderful story of the progress of the race in
+the mastery of the science of mechanics. They cover inventions of more
+or less importance in all the branches of mechanics, in chemical
+compounds, in surgical instruments, in electrical utilities, and in the
+fine arts as well.</p>
+
+<p>From the numerous statements made by various attorneys to the effect
+that they have had several colored clients whose names they could not
+recall, and whose inventions they could not identify on their books, it
+is practically certain that the nearly 800 verified patents do not
+represent more than one-half of those that have been actually granted to
+colored inventors, and that the credit for these must perhaps forever
+lie hidden in the unbreakable silence of official records.</p>
+
+<p>But before directing attention specifically to some of the very
+interesting details disclosed by this latest investigation into the
+subject, let us consider for a brief moment a few of the inventions
+which colored men have made, but for which no patents appear to be of
+record.</p>
+
+<p>I should place foremost among these that wonderful clock constructed by
+our first astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, of Maryland. Banneker's span of
+earthly existence covered the 75 years from 1731 to 1806. His parentage
+was of African and English origin, and his mental equipment was far
+above the average of his day and locality in either race. Aside from his
+agricultural pursuits, on which he relied for a livelihood, he devoted
+his time mainly to scientific and mechanical studies, producing two
+things by which he will be long remembered: An almanac and a clock. The
+latter he constructed with crude tools, and with no knowledge of any
+other timepiece except a watch and a sundial; yet the clock he made was
+so perfect in every detail of its mechanical construction, so accurate
+in the mathematical calculations involved, that it struck the hours with
+faultless precision for twenty years, and was the mechanical wonder of
+his day and locality.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Voice of the Negro</i>, in 1905, but Mr.
+Murray did not reach conclusions favorable to the contention on behalf
+of the colored man.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the zigzag fence, so commonly used by farmers and
+others, was originally introduced into this country by African slaves.</p>
+
+<p>We come now to consider the list of more modern inventions, those
+inventions from which the element of uncertainty is wholly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> eliminated,
+and which are represented in the patent records of our government.</p>
+
+<p>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-&agrave;-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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Woods is, perhaps, the best known of all the inventors whose
+achievements redound to the credit of our race; and in his passing away
+he has left us the rich legacy of a life successfully devoted to the
+cause of progress.</p>
+
+<p>In the prolific yield of his inventive genius, Elijah McCoy, of Detroit,
+stands next to Granville T. Woods.</p>
+
+<p>So far as is ascertainable from the office records Mr. McCoy obtained
+his first patent in July, 1872, and the last patent was granted to him
+in July, 1912. During the intervening forty years he continued to invent
+one thing after another, completing a record of nearly forty patents on
+as many separate and distinct inventions. His inventions, like those of
+Woods', cover a wide range of subjects, but relate particularly to the
+scheme of lubricating machinery. He is regarded as the pioneer in the
+art of steadily supplying oil to machinery in intermittent drops from a
+cup so as to avoid the necessity for stopping the machine to oil it. His
+lubricating cup was in use for years on stationary and locomotive
+machinery in the West, including the great railway locomotives, the
+boiler engines of the steamers on the Great Lakes, on transatlantic
+steamships, and in many of our leading factories. McCoy's lubricating
+cups were famous thirty years ago as a necessary equipment in all
+up-to-date machinery, and it would be rather interesting to know how
+many of the thousands of machinists who used them daily had any idea
+then that they were the invention of a colored man.</p>
+
+<p>Another inventor whose patents occupy a conspicuous place in the records
+of the Patent Office, and whose achievements in that line stand recorded
+as a credit to the colored man, is Mr. William B. Purvis, of
+Philadelphia. His inventions also cover a variety of subjects, but are
+directed mainly along a single line of experiment and improvement. He
+began, in 1882, the invention of machines for making paper bags, and his
+improvements in this line of machinery are covered by a dozen patents;
+and a half dozen other patents granted Mr. Purvis include three patents
+on electric railways, one on a fountain pen, another on a magnetic
+car-balancing device, and still another for a cutter for roll holders.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/pelham.jpg" width="400" height="564" alt="portrait of Robert A. Pelham" title="" />
+<span class="caption">ROBERT A. PELHAM</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another very interesting instance of an inventor whose genius for
+creating new things is constantly active, producing results that express
+themselves in terms of dollars for himself and others, is that of Mr.
+Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey. Mr. Dickinson's specialty is in
+the line of musical instruments, particularly the piano. He began more
+than fifteen years ago to invent devices for automatically playing the
+piano, and is at present in the employ of a large piano factory, where
+his various inventions in piano-player mechanism are eagerly adopted in
+the construction of some of the finest player pianos on the market. He
+has more than a dozen patents to his credit already, and is still
+devoting his energies to that line of invention.</p>
+
+<p>The company with which he is identified is one of the very largest
+corporations of its kind in the world, and it is no little distinction
+to have one of our race occupy so significant a relation to it, and to
+hold it by the sheer force of a trained and active intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Frank J. Ferrell, of New York, has obtained about a dozen patents
+for his inventions, the larger portion of them being for improvements in
+valves for steam engines.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Benjamin F. Jackson, of Massachusetts, is the inventor of a dozen
+different improvements in heating and lighting devices, including a
+controller for a trolley wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles V. Richey, of Washington, has obtained about a dozen patents
+on his inventions, the last of which was a most ingenious device for
+registering the calls on a telephone and detecting the unauthorized use
+of that instrument. This particular patent was only recently taken out
+by Mr. Richey, and he has organized a company for placing the invention
+on the market, with fine prospects of success.</p>
+
+<p>Hon. George W. Murray, of South Carolina, former member of Congress from
+that State, has received eight patents for his inventions in
+agricultural implements, including mostly such different attachments as
+readily adapt a single implement to a variety of uses.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Creamer, of New York, has made seven different inventions in steam
+traps, covered by as many patents, and Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, has
+about the same number to his credit for inventions in car-coupling
+devices.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. William Douglass, of Kansas, was granted about a half dozen patents
+for various inventions in harvesting machines. One of his patents, that
+one numbered 789,010, and dated May 2, 1905, for a self-binding
+harvester, is conspicuous in the records of the Patent Office for the
+complicated and intricate character of the machine, for the extensive
+drawings required to illustrate it and the lengthy specifications
+required to explain it&mdash;there being thirty-seven large sheets of
+mechanical drawings and thirty-two printed pages of descriptive matter,
+including the 166 claims drawn to cover the novel points presented. This
+particular patent is, in these respects, quite unique in the class here
+considered.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. James Doyle, of Pittsburgh, has obtained several patents for his
+inventions, one of them being for an automatic serving system. This
+latter device is a scheme for dispensing with the use of waiters in
+dining rooms, restaurants and at railroad lunch counters. It was
+recently exhibited with the Pennsylvania Exposition Society's exhibits
+at Pittsburgh, where it attracted widespread attention from the press
+and the public. The model used on that occasion is said to have cost
+nearly $2,000.</p>
+
+<p>In the civil service at Washington there are several colored men who
+have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by
+the mechanical problems arising in their daily occupations.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shelby J. Davidson, of Kentucky, a clerk in the office of the
+Auditor for the Post Office Department, operated a machine for
+tabulating and totalizing the quarterly accounts which were regularly
+submitted by the postmasters of the country. Mr. Davidson's attention
+was first directed to the loss in time through the necessity for
+periodically stopping to manually dispose of the paper coming from the
+machine. He invented a rewind device which served as an attachment for
+automatically taking up the paper as it issued from the machine, and
+adapted it for use again on the reverse side, thus effecting a very
+considerable economy of time and material. His main invention, however,
+was a novel attachment for adding machines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> which was designed to
+automatically include the government fee, as well as the amount sent,
+when totalizing the money orders in the reports submitted by
+postmasters. This was a distinct improvement in the efficiency and value
+of the machine he was operating and the government granted him patents
+on both inventions. His talents were recognized not only by the office
+in which he was employed by promotion in rank and pay, but also in a
+very significant way by the large factory which turned out the adding
+machines the government was using. Mr. Davidson has since resigned his
+position and is now engaged in the practice of the law in Washington, D.
+C.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert Pelham, of Detroit, is similarly employed in the Census
+Bureau, where his duties include the compilation of groups of statistics
+on sheets from data sent into the office from the thousands of
+manufacturers of the country. Unlike most of the other men in the
+departmental service, Mr. Pelham seemed anxious to get through with his
+job quickly, for he devised a machine used as an adjunct in tabulating
+the statistics from the manufacturers' schedules in a way that displaced
+a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically,
+speedily and with faultless precision, when operated under Mr. Pelham's
+skilful direction. Mr. Pelham has also been granted a patent for his
+invention, and the proved efficiency of his devices induced the United
+States government to lease them from him, paying him a royalty for their
+use, in addition to his salary for operating them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pelham's mechanical genius is evidently "running in the family," for
+his oldest son, now a high-school youth, has distinguished himself by
+his experiments in wireless telegraphy, and is one of the very few
+colored boys in Washington holding a regular license for operating the
+wireless.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. W. A. Lavalette, of the Government Printing Office, the largest
+printing establishment in the world, began his career as a printer there
+years before the development of that art called into use the wonderful
+machines employed in it to-day; and one of his first efforts was to
+devise a printing machine superior to the pioneer type used at that
+time. This was in 1879, and he succeeded that year in inventing and
+patenting a printing machine that was a notable novelty in its day,
+though it has, of course, long ago been superseded by others.</p>
+
+<p>I have reserved for the last the name and work of Jan Matzeliger, of
+Massachusetts. Although there are barely half a dozen patents standing
+in his name on the records of the office, and his name is little known
+to the general public, there are, I think, some points in his career
+that easily make him conspicuous above all the rest, and I have found
+the story really inspiring.</p>
+
+<p>As a very young man Matzeliger worked in a shoe shop in Lynn, Mass.,
+serving his apprenticeship at that trade. Seeking, in the true spirit of
+the inventor, to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew
+before, he devised the first complete machine ever invented for
+performing automatically all the operations involved in attaching soles
+to shoes. Other machines had previously been made for performing a part
+of these operations, but Matzeliger's machine was the only one then
+known to the mechanical world that could simultaneously hold the last in
+place to receive the leather, move it forward step by step so that other
+co-acting parts might draw the leather over the heel, properly punch and
+grip the upper and draw it down over the last, plait the leather
+properly at the heel and toe, feed the nails to the driving point, hold
+them in position while being driven, and then discharge the completely
+soled shoe from the machine, everything being done automatically, and
+requiring less than a minute to complete a single shoe.</p>
+
+<p>This wonderful achievement marked the beginning of a distinct revolution
+in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and
+attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his
+invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack
+of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he
+passed away.</p>
+
+<p>He had done his work, however, under the keen eye of the shrewd Yankees,
+and these were quick to see the immense commercial importance of the
+step he had accomplished. One of these bought the patent and all of the
+stock that he could find of the company organized by Matzeliger. This
+fortunate purchase laid the foundation for the organization of the
+United Shoe Machinery Company, the largest and richest corporation of
+the kind in the world. (See, in <i>Munsey's Magazine</i> of August, 1912, on
+page 722, biographical sketch of Mr. Sidney Winslow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> millionaire head
+of the United Shoe Machinery Company.)</p>
+
+<p>Some idea may be had of the magnitude of this giant industry, which is
+thus shown to have grown directly out of the inventions of a young
+colored man, by recalling the fact that the corporation represents the
+consolidation of forty-one different smaller companies, that its
+factories cover twenty-one acres of ground, that it gives employment
+daily to 4,200 persons, that its working capital is quoted at
+$20,860,000, and that it controls more than 300 patents representing
+improvements in the machines it produces. From an article published in
+the Lynn (Mass.) <i>News</i>, of October 3, 1889, it appears that the United
+Shoe Machinery Company, above mentioned, established at Lynn a school,
+the only one of its kind in the world, where boys are taught exclusively
+to operate the Matzeliger type of machine; that a class of about 200
+boys and young men are graduated from this school annually and sent out
+to various parts of the world to instruct others in the art of handling
+this machine.</p>
+
+<p>Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church
+in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this
+church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years
+afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering
+the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon
+inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the
+patent under the management of the large company then controlling it.
+The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to
+pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the
+canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service
+of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of
+their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense
+congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church,
+read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J.
+Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans
+13:8&mdash;"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the
+hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in
+the hearts of those present.</p>
+
+<p>There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is
+ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he
+had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is
+irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified
+copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's
+death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."</p>
+
+<p>Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a
+too kind biographer, writing of him in the <i>Cosmopolitan</i> in April,
+1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr.
+Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such
+ethnological errancy.</p>
+
+<p>Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the
+criticism that his machine was not perfect, requiring subsequent
+improvements to complete it and make it commercially valuable.
+Matzeliger was as truly a pioneer, blazing the way for a great
+industrial triumph, as was Whitney, or Howe, or Watt, or Fulton, or any
+other one of the scores of pioneers in the field of mechanical genius.
+The cotton gin of to-day is, of course, not the cotton gin first given
+to the world by Whitney, but the essential principles of its
+construction are found clearly outlined in Whitney's machine. The
+complex and intricate sewing machine of to-day, with its various
+attachments to meet the needs of the modern seamstress, is not the crude
+machine that came from the brain of Elias Howe; the giant locomotives
+that now speedily cover the transcontinental distance between New York
+and San Francisco bear but slight resemblance to the engine that
+Stephenson first gave us. In fact, the first productions of all these
+pioneers, while they disclosed the principles and laid the foundations
+upon which to build, resemble the later developments only "as mists
+resemble rain;" but these pioneers make up the army of capable men whose
+toil and trial, whose brawn and brain, whose infinite patience and
+indomitable courage have placed this nation of ours in the very front
+rank of the world's inventors; and, standing there among them, with his
+name indelible, is our dark-skinned brother, the patient, resourceful
+Matzeliger.</p>
+
+<p>In the credit here accorded our race for its achievements in the field
+of invention our women as well as our men are entitled to share. With an
+industrial field necessarily more circumscribed than that occupied by
+our men, and therefore with fewer opportunities and fewer reasons, as
+well, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> exercising the inventive faculty, they have, nevertheless,
+made a remarkably creditable showing. The record shows that more than
+twenty colored women have been granted patents for their inventions, and
+that these inventions cover also a wide range of subjects&mdash;artistic,
+utilitarian, fanciful.</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing facts are here presented as a part only of the record made
+by the race in the field of invention for the first half century of our
+national life. We can never know the whole story. But we know enough to
+feel sure that if others knew the story even as we ourselves know it, it
+would present us in a somewhat different light to the judgment of our
+fellow men, and, perhaps, make for us a position of new importance in
+the industrial activities of our country. This great consummation,
+devoutly to be wished, may form the story of the next fifty years of our
+progress along these specific lines, so that some one in the distant
+future, looking down the rugged pathway of the years, may see this race
+of ours coming up, step by step, into the fullest possession of our
+industrial, economic and intellectual emancipation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>NOTE</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>The writer has in preparation, for early publication, a book which will
+deal more in detail with the subject of this pamphlet, presenting the
+names of all inventors, so far as ascertained, with the titles of their
+inventions and the dates and numbers of their patents, together with
+brief biographical sketches of many of the more active inventors.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="subhead3 padtop">Published by <b>THE CRISIS PUBLISHING COMPANY</b><br />
+Copyrighted, 1913, by Henry E. Baker</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Colored Inventor
+       A Record of Fifty Years
+
+Author: Henry E. Baker
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2007 [EBook #21281]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COLORED INVENTOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stacy Brown, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Colored Inventor
+
+A RECORD OF FIFTY YEARS
+
+By HENRY E. BAKER. Assistant Examiner United States Patent Office
+
+
+[Illustration: HENRY E. BAKER.]
+
+
+
+
+The year 1913 marks the close of the first fifty years since Abraham
+Lincoln issued that famous edict known as the emancipation proclamation,
+by which physical freedom was vouchsafed to the slaves and the
+descendants of slaves in this country. And it would seem entirely fit
+and proper that those who were either directly or indirectly benefited
+by that proclamation should pause long enough at this period in their
+national life to review the past, recount the progress made, and see, if
+possible, what of the future is disclosed in the past.
+
+That the colored people in the United States have made substantial
+progress in the general spread of intelligence among them, and in
+elevating the tone of their moral life; in the acquisition of property;
+in the development and support of business enterprises, and in the
+professional activities, is a matter of quite common assent by those who
+have been at all observant on the subject. This fact is amply shown to
+be true by the many universities, colleges and schools organized,
+supported and manned by the race, by their attractive homes and cultured
+home life, found now in all parts of our country; by the increasing
+numbers of those of the race who are successfully engaging in
+professional life, and by the gradual advance the race is making toward
+business efficiency in many varied lines of business activity.
+
+It is not so apparent, however, to the general public that along the
+line of inventions also the colored race has made surprising and
+substantial progress; and that it has followed, even if "afar off," the
+footsteps of the more favored race. And it is highly important,
+therefore, that we should make note of what the race has achieved along
+this line to the end that proper credit may be accorded it as having
+made some contribution to our national progress.
+
+Standing foremost in the list of things that have actually done most to
+promote our national progress in all material ways is the item of
+inventions. Without inventions we should have had no agricultural
+implements with which to till the fertile fields of our vast continent;
+no mining machinery for recovering the rich treasure that for centuries
+lay hidden beneath our surface; no steamcar or steamboat for
+transporting the products of field and mine; no machinery for converting
+those products into other forms of commercial needs; no telegraph or
+telephone for the speedy transmission of messages, no means for
+discovering and controlling the various utilitarian applications of
+electricity; no one of those delicate instruments which enable the
+skilful surgeon of to-day to transform and renew the human body, and
+often to make life itself stand erect, as it were, in the very presence
+of death. Without inventions we could have none of those numerous
+instruments which to-day in the hands of the scientist enable him
+accurately to forecast the weather, to anticipate and provide against
+storms on land and at sea, to detect seismic disturbances and warn
+against the dangers incident to their repetition; and no wireless
+telegraphy with its manifold blessings to humanity.
+
+All these great achievements have come to us from the hand of the
+inventor. He it is who has enabled us to inhabit the air above us, to
+tunnel the earth beneath, explore the mysteries of the sea, and in a
+thousand ways, unknown to our forefathers, multiply human comforts and
+minimize human misery. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a single
+feature of our national progress along material lines that has not been
+vitalized by the touch of the inventor's genius.
+
+Into this vast yet specific field of scientific industry the colored man
+has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to
+his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding
+industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others
+in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new
+things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt
+them to new uses. We know that the colored man has accomplished
+something--indeed, a very great deal--in the field of invention, but it
+would be of the first importance to us now to know exactly what he has
+done, and the commercial value of his productions. Unfortunately for us,
+however, this can never be known in all its completeness.
+
+A very recent experiment in the matter of collecting information on this
+subject has disclosed some remarkably striking facts, not the least
+interesting of which is the very widespread belief among those who ought
+to know better that the colored man has done absolutely nothing of value
+in the line of invention. This is but a reflex of the opinions variously
+expressed by others at different times on the subject of the capacity of
+the colored man for mental work of a high order. Thomas Jefferson's
+remark that no colored man could probably be found who was capable of
+taking in and comprehending Euclid, and that none had made any
+contribution to the civilization of the world through his art, would
+perhaps appear somewhat excusable when viewed in the light of the
+prevailing conditions in his day, and on which, of course, his judgment
+was based; but even at that time Jefferson knew something of the
+superior quality of Benjamin Banneker's mental equipment, for it is on
+record that they exchanged letters on that subject.
+
+Coming down to a later day, when our race as a whole had shared, to some
+extent at least, in the progress of learning, so well informed an
+exponent of popular thought as Henry Ward Beecher is said to have
+declared that the whole African race in its native land could be
+obliterated from the face of the earth without loss to civilization, and
+yet Beecher knew, or should have known, of the scholarly Dr. Blyden, of
+Liberia, who was at one time president of the college of Liberia at
+Monrovia, and minister from his country to the Court of St. James, and
+whose contributions to the leading magazines of Europe and America were
+eagerly accepted and widely read on both continents.
+
+Less than ten years ago, in a hotly contested campaign in the State of
+Maryland, a popular candidate for Congress remarked, in one of his
+speeches, that the colored race should be denied the right to vote
+because "none of them had ever evinced sufficient capacity to justify
+such a privilege," and that "no one of the race had ever yet reached the
+dignity of an inventor." Yet, at that very moment, there was in the
+Library of Congress in Washington a book of nearly 500 pages containing
+a list of nearly 400 patents representing the inventions of colored
+people.
+
+Only a few years later a leading newspaper in the city of Richmond, Va.,
+made the bold statement that of the many thousands of patents annually
+granted by our government to the inventors of our country, "not a single
+patent had ever been granted to a colored man." Of course this statement
+was untrue, but what of that? It told its tale, and made its
+impression--far and wide; and it is incumbent upon our race now to
+outrun that story, to correct that impression, and to let the world know
+the truth.
+
+In a recent correspondence that has reached nearly two-thirds of the
+more than 12,000 registered patent attorneys in this country, who are
+licensed to prosecute applications for patents before the Patent Office
+at Washington, it is astonishing to have nearly 2,500 of them reply that
+they never heard of a colored inventor, and not a few of them add that
+they never expect to hear of one. One practising attorney, writing from
+a small town in Tennessee, said that he not only has never heard of a
+colored man inventing anything, but that he and the other lawyers to
+whom he passed the inquiry in that locality were "inclined to regard the
+whole subject as a joke." And this, remember, comes from practising
+lawyers, presumably men of affairs, and of judgment, and who keep
+somewhat ahead of the average citizen in their close observation of the
+trend of things.
+
+Now there ought not to be anything strange or unbelievable in the fact
+that in any given group of more than 10,000,000 human beings, of
+whatever race, living in our age, in our country, and developing under
+our laws, one can find multiplied examples of every mental bent, of
+every stage of mental development, and of every evidence of mental
+perception that could be found in any other similar group of human
+beings of any other race; and yet, so set has become the traditional
+attitude of one class in our country toward the other class that the one
+class continually holds up before its eyes an imaginary boundary line in
+all things mental, beyond which it seems unwilling to admit that it is
+possible for the other class to go.
+
+Under this condition of the general class thought in our country it has
+become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined
+power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought,
+that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the
+beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to
+the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no place for
+himself in the ranks of those who have made this nation the foremost
+nation of the world in the number and character of its inventions.
+
+That this conclusion with reference to the colored man's inventive
+faculty is wholly untrue I will endeavor now to show.
+
+In the world of invention the colored man has pursued the same line of
+activity that other men have followed; he has been spurred by the same
+necessity that has confronted other men, namely, the need for some
+device by which to minimize the exactions of his daily toil, to save his
+time, conserve his strength and multiply the results of his labor. Like
+other men, the colored man sought first to invent the thing that was
+related to his earlier occupations, and as his industrial pursuits
+became more varied his inventive genius widened correspondingly. Thus we
+find that the first recorded instances of patents having been granted to
+a colored man--and the only ones specifically so designated--are the two
+patents on corn harvesters which were granted in 1834 and 1836 to one
+Henry Blair, of Maryland, presumably a "free person of color," as the
+law was so construed at that time as to bar the issuance of a patent to
+a slave.
+
+With the exception of these two instances the public records of the
+Patent Office give absolutely no hint as to whether any one of the more
+than 1,000,000 patents granted by this government to meritorious
+inventors from all parts of the world has been granted to a colored
+inventor. The records make clear enough distinctions as to nationality,
+but absolutely none as to race. This policy of having the public records
+distinguish between inventors of different nationalities only is a
+distinct disadvantage to the colored race in this country.
+
+If the inventors of England or France or Germany or Italy, or any other
+country, desire to ascertain the number and character of the inventions
+patented to the citizens of their respective countries, it would require
+but a few hours of work to get exact statistics on the subject, but not
+so with the colored inventor. Here, as elsewhere, he has a hard road to
+travel.
+
+In fact, it seems absolutely impossible to get even an approximately
+correct answer to that question for our race. Whatever of statistics one
+is able to get on this subject must be obtained almost wholly in a
+haphazard sort of way from persons not employed in the Patent Office,
+and who must, in the great majority of cases, rely on their memory to
+some extent for the facts they give. Under such circumstances as these
+it is easy to see the large amount of labor involved in getting up such
+statistics as may be relied upon as being true.
+
+There have been two systematic efforts made by the Patent Office itself
+to get this information, one of them being in operation at the present
+time. The effort is made through a circular letter addressed to the
+thousands of patent attorneys throughout the country, who come in
+contact often with inventors as their clients, to popular and
+influential newspapers, to conspicuous citizens of both races, and to
+the owners of large manufacturing industries where skilled mechanics of
+both races are employed, all of whom are asked to report what they
+happen to know on the subject under inquiry.
+
+The answers to this inquiry cover a wide range of guesswork, many mere
+rumors and a large number of definite facts. These are all put through
+the test of comparison with the official records of the Patent Office,
+and this sifting process has evolved such facts as form the basis of the
+showing presented here.
+
+There is just one other source of information which, though its yield of
+facts is small, yet makes up in reliability what it lacks in
+numerousness; and that is where the inventor himself comes to the Patent
+Office to look after his invention. This does not often happen, but it
+rarely leaves anything to the imagination when it does happen.
+
+Sometimes it has been difficult to get this information by
+correspondence even from colored inventors themselves. Many of them
+refuse to acknowledge that their inventions are in any way identified
+with the colored race, on the ground, presumably, that the publication
+of that fact might adversely affect the commercial value of their
+invention; and in view of the prevailing sentiment in many sections of
+our country, it cannot be denied that much reason lies at the bottom of
+such conclusion.
+
+Notwithstanding the difficulties above mentioned as standing in the way
+of getting at the whole truth, something over 1,200 instances have been
+gathered as representing patents granted to colored inventors, but so
+far only about 800 of these have been verified as definitely belonging
+to that class.
+
+These 800 patents tell a wonderful story of the progress of the race in
+the mastery of the science of mechanics. They cover inventions of more
+or less importance in all the branches of mechanics, in chemical
+compounds, in surgical instruments, in electrical utilities, and in the
+fine arts as well.
+
+From the numerous statements made by various attorneys to the effect
+that they have had several colored clients whose names they could not
+recall, and whose inventions they could not identify on their books, it
+is practically certain that the nearly 800 verified patents do not
+represent more than one-half of those that have been actually granted to
+colored inventors, and that the credit for these must perhaps forever
+lie hidden in the unbreakable silence of official records.
+
+But before directing attention specifically to some of the very
+interesting details disclosed by this latest investigation into the
+subject, let us consider for a brief moment a few of the inventions
+which colored men have made, but for which no patents appear to be of
+record.
+
+I should place foremost among these that wonderful clock constructed by
+our first astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, of Maryland. Banneker's span of
+earthly existence covered the 75 years from 1731 to 1806. His parentage
+was of African and English origin, and his mental equipment was far
+above the average of his day and locality in either race. Aside from his
+agricultural pursuits, on which he relied for a livelihood, he devoted
+his time mainly to scientific and mechanical studies, producing two
+things by which he will be long remembered: An almanac and a clock. The
+latter he constructed with crude tools, and with no knowledge of any
+other timepiece except a watch and a sundial; yet the clock he made was
+so perfect in every detail of its mechanical construction, so accurate
+in the mathematical calculations involved, that it struck the hours with
+faultless precision for twenty years, and was the mechanical wonder of
+his day and locality.
+
+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-a-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.
+
+Mr. Woods is, perhaps, the best known of all the inventors whose
+achievements redound to the credit of our race; and in his passing away
+he has left us the rich legacy of a life successfully devoted to the
+cause of progress.
+
+[Illustration: ELIJAH McCOY.]
+
+In the prolific yield of his inventive genius, Elijah McCoy, of Detroit,
+stands next to Granville T. Woods.
+
+So far as is ascertainable from the office records Mr. McCoy obtained
+his first patent in July, 1872, and the last patent was granted to him
+in July, 1912. During the intervening forty years he continued to invent
+one thing after another, completing a record of nearly forty patents on
+as many separate and distinct inventions. His inventions, like those of
+Woods', cover a wide range of subjects, but relate particularly to the
+scheme of lubricating machinery. He is regarded as the pioneer in the
+art of steadily supplying oil to machinery in intermittent drops from a
+cup so as to avoid the necessity for stopping the machine to oil it. His
+lubricating cup was in use for years on stationary and locomotive
+machinery in the West, including the great railway locomotives, the
+boiler engines of the steamers on the Great Lakes, on transatlantic
+steamships, and in many of our leading factories. McCoy's lubricating
+cups were famous thirty years ago as a necessary equipment in all
+up-to-date machinery, and it would be rather interesting to know how
+many of the thousands of machinists who used them daily had any idea
+then that they were the invention of a colored man.
+
+Another inventor whose patents occupy a conspicuous place in the records
+of the Patent Office, and whose achievements in that line stand recorded
+as a credit to the colored man, is Mr. William B. Purvis, of
+Philadelphia. His inventions also cover a variety of subjects, but are
+directed mainly along a single line of experiment and improvement. He
+began, in 1882, the invention of machines for making paper bags, and his
+improvements in this line of machinery are covered by a dozen patents;
+and a half dozen other patents granted Mr. Purvis include three patents
+on electric railways, one on a fountain pen, another on a magnetic
+car-balancing device, and still another for a cutter for roll holders.
+
+Another very interesting instance of an inventor whose genius for
+creating new things is constantly active, producing results that express
+themselves in terms of dollars for himself and others, is that of Mr.
+Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey. Mr. Dickinson's specialty is in
+the line of musical instruments, particularly the piano. He began more
+than fifteen years ago to invent devices for automatically playing the
+piano, and is at present in the employ of a large piano factory, where
+his various inventions in piano-player mechanism are eagerly adopted in
+the construction of some of the finest player pianos on the market. He
+has more than a dozen patents to his credit already, and is still
+devoting his energies to that line of invention.
+
+The company with which he is identified is one of the very largest
+corporations of its kind in the world, and it is no little distinction
+to have one of our race occupy so significant a relation to it, and to
+hold it by the sheer force of a trained and active intellect.
+
+Mr. Frank J. Ferrell, of New York, has obtained about a dozen patents
+for his inventions, the larger portion of them being for improvements in
+valves for steam engines.
+
+Mr. Benjamin F. Jackson, of Massachusetts, is the inventor of a dozen
+different improvements in heating and lighting devices, including a
+controller for a trolley wheel.
+
+Mr. Charles V. Richey, of Washington, has obtained about a dozen patents
+on his inventions, the last of which was a most ingenious device for
+registering the calls on a telephone and detecting the unauthorized use
+of that instrument. This particular patent was only recently taken out
+by Mr. Richey, and he has organized a company for placing the invention
+on the market, with fine prospects of success.
+
+Hon. George W. Murray, of South Carolina, former member of Congress from
+that State, has received eight patents for his inventions in
+agricultural implements, including mostly such different attachments as
+readily adapt a single implement to a variety of uses.
+
+Henry Creamer, of New York, has made seven different inventions in steam
+traps, covered by as many patents, and Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, has
+about the same number to his credit for inventions in car-coupling
+devices.
+
+Mr. William Douglass, of Kansas, was granted about a half dozen patents
+for various inventions in harvesting machines. One of his patents, that
+one numbered 789,010, and dated May 2, 1905, for a self-binding
+harvester, is conspicuous in the records of the Patent Office for the
+complicated and intricate character of the machine, for the extensive
+drawings required to illustrate it and the lengthy specifications
+required to explain it--there being thirty-seven large sheets of
+mechanical drawings and thirty-two printed pages of descriptive matter,
+including the 166 claims drawn to cover the novel points presented. This
+particular patent is, in these respects, quite unique in the class here
+considered.
+
+Mr. James Doyle, of Pittsburgh, has obtained several patents for his
+inventions, one of them being for an automatic serving system. This
+latter device is a scheme for dispensing with the use of waiters in
+dining rooms, restaurants and at railroad lunch counters. It was
+recently exhibited with the Pennsylvania Exposition Society's exhibits
+at Pittsburgh, where it attracted widespread attention from the press
+and the public. The model used on that occasion is said to have cost
+nearly $2,000.
+
+In the civil service at Washington there are several colored men who
+have made inventions of more or less importance which were suggested by
+the mechanical problems arising in their daily occupations.
+
+Mr. Shelby J. Davidson, of Kentucky, a clerk in the office of the
+Auditor for the Post Office Department, operated a machine for
+tabulating and totalizing the quarterly accounts which were
+regularly submitted by the postmasters of the country. Mr.
+Davidson's attention was first directed to the loss in time through
+the necessity for periodically stopping to manually dispose of the
+paper coming from the machine. He invented a rewind device which
+served as an attachment for automatically taking up the paper as it
+issued from the machine, and adapted it for use again on the reverse
+side, thus effecting a very considerable economy of time and
+material. His main invention, however, was a novel attachment for
+adding machines which was designed to automatically include the
+government fee, as well as the amount sent, when totalizing the
+money orders in the reports submitted by postmasters. This was a
+distinct improvement in the efficiency and value of the machine he
+was operating and the government granted him patents on both
+inventions. His talents were recognized not only by the office in
+which he was employed by promotion in rank and pay, but also in a
+very significant way by the large factory which turned out the
+adding machines the government was using. Mr. Davidson has since
+resigned his position and is now engaged in the practice of the law
+in Washington, D.C.
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT A. PELHAM.]
+
+Mr. Robert Pelham, of Detroit, is similarly employed in the Census
+Bureau, where his duties include the compilation of groups of statistics
+on sheets from data sent into the office from the thousands of
+manufacturers of the country. Unlike most of the other men in the
+departmental service, Mr. Pelham seemed anxious to get through with his
+job quickly, for he devised a machine used as an adjunct in tabulating
+the statistics from the manufacturers' schedules in a way that displaced
+a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically,
+speedily and with faultless precision, when operated under Mr. Pelham's
+skilful direction. Mr. Pelham has also been granted a patent for his
+invention, and the proved efficiency of his devices induced the United
+States government to lease them from him, paying him a royalty for their
+use, in addition to his salary for operating them.
+
+Mr. Pelham's mechanical genius is evidently "running in the family," for
+his oldest son, now a high-school youth, has distinguished himself by
+his experiments in wireless telegraphy, and is one of the very few
+colored boys in Washington holding a regular license for operating the
+wireless.
+
+Mr. W. A. Lavalette, of the Government Printing Office, the largest
+printing establishment in the world, began his career as a printer there
+years before the development of that art called into use the wonderful
+machines employed in it to-day; and one of his first efforts was to
+devise a printing machine superior to the pioneer type used at that
+time. This was in 1879, and he succeeded that year in inventing and
+patenting a printing machine that was a notable novelty in its day,
+though it has, of course, long ago been superseded by others.
+
+I have reserved for the last the name and work of Jan Matzeliger, of
+Massachusetts. Although there are barely half a dozen patents standing
+in his name on the records of the office, and his name is little known
+to the general public, there are, I think, some points in his career
+that easily make him conspicuous above all the rest, and I have found
+the story really inspiring.
+
+As a very young man Matzeliger worked in a shoe shop in Lynn, Mass.,
+serving his apprenticeship at that trade. Seeking, in the true spirit of
+the inventor, to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew
+before, he devised the first complete machine ever invented for
+performing automatically all the operations involved in attaching soles
+to shoes. Other machines had previously been made for performing a part
+of these operations, but Matzeliger's machine was the only one then
+known to the mechanical world that could simultaneously hold the last in
+place to receive the leather, move it forward step by step so that other
+co-acting parts might draw the leather over the heel, properly punch and
+grip the upper and draw it down over the last, plait the leather
+properly at the heel and toe, feed the nails to the driving point, hold
+them in position while being driven, and then discharge the completely
+soled shoe from the machine, everything being done automatically, and
+requiring less than a minute to complete a single shoe.
+
+This wonderful achievement marked the beginning of a distinct revolution
+in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and
+attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his
+invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack
+of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he
+passed away.
+
+He had done his work, however, under the keen eye of the shrewd Yankees,
+and these were quick to see the immense commercial importance of the
+step he had accomplished. One of these bought the patent and all of the
+stock that he could find of the company organized by Matzeliger. This
+fortunate purchase laid the foundation for the organization of the
+United Shoe Machinery Company, the largest and richest corporation of
+the kind in the world. (See, in _Munsey's Magazine_ of August, 1912, on
+page 722, biographical sketch of Mr. Sidney Winslow, millionaire head
+of the United Shoe Machinery Company.)
+
+Some idea may be had of the magnitude of this giant industry, which is
+thus shown to have grown directly out of the inventions of a young
+colored man, by recalling the fact that the corporation represents the
+consolidation of forty-one different smaller companies, that its
+factories cover twenty-one acres of ground, that it gives employment
+daily to 4,200 persons, that its working capital is quoted at
+$20,860,000, and that it controls more than 300 patents representing
+improvements in the machines it produces. From an article published in
+the Lynn (Mass.) _News_, of October 3, 1889, it appears that the United
+Shoe Machinery Company, above mentioned, established at Lynn a school,
+the only one of its kind in the world, where boys are taught exclusively
+to operate the Matzeliger type of machine; that a class of about 200
+boys and young men are graduated from this school annually and sent out
+to various parts of the world to instruct others in the art of handling
+this machine.
+
+Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church
+in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this
+church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years
+afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering
+the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon
+inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the
+patent under the management of the large company then controlling it.
+The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to
+pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the
+canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service
+of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of
+their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense
+congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church,
+read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J.
+Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans
+13:8--"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the
+hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in
+the hearts of those present.
+
+There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is
+ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he
+had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is
+irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified
+copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's
+death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."
+
+Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a
+too kind biographer, writing of him in the _Cosmopolitan_ in April,
+1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr.
+Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such
+ethnological errancy.
+
+Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the
+criticism that his machine was not perfect, requiring subsequent
+improvements to complete it and make it commercially valuable.
+Matzeliger was as truly a pioneer, blazing the way for a great
+industrial triumph, as was Whitney, or Howe, or Watt, or Fulton, or any
+other one of the scores of pioneers in the field of mechanical genius.
+The cotton gin of to-day is, of course, not the cotton gin first given
+to the world by Whitney, but the essential principles of its
+construction are found clearly outlined in Whitney's machine. The
+complex and intricate sewing machine of to-day, with its various
+attachments to meet the needs of the modern seamstress, is not the crude
+machine that came from the brain of Elias Howe; the giant locomotives
+that now speedily cover the transcontinental distance between New York
+and San Francisco bear but slight resemblance to the engine that
+Stephenson first gave us. In fact, the first productions of all these
+pioneers, while they disclosed the principles and laid the foundations
+upon which to build, resemble the later developments only "as mists
+resemble rain;" but these pioneers make up the army of capable men whose
+toil and trial, whose brawn and brain, whose infinite patience and
+indomitable courage have placed this nation of ours in the very front
+rank of the world's inventors; and, standing there among them, with his
+name indelible, is our dark-skinned brother, the patient, resourceful
+Matzeliger.
+
+In the credit here accorded our race for its achievements in the field
+of invention our women as well as our men are entitled to share. With an
+industrial field necessarily more circumscribed than that occupied by
+our men, and therefore with fewer opportunities and fewer reasons, as
+well, for exercising the inventive faculty, they have, nevertheless,
+made a remarkably creditable showing. The record shows that more than
+twenty colored women have been granted patents for their inventions, and
+that these inventions cover also a wide range of subjects--artistic,
+utilitarian, fanciful.
+
+The foregoing facts are here presented as a part only of the record made
+by the race in the field of invention for the first half century of our
+national life. We can never know the whole story. But we know enough to
+feel sure that if others knew the story even as we ourselves know it, it
+would present us in a somewhat different light to the judgment of our
+fellow men, and, perhaps, make for us a position of new importance in
+the industrial activities of our country. This great consummation,
+devoutly to be wished, may form the story of the next fifty years of our
+progress along these specific lines, so that some one in the distant
+future, looking down the rugged pathway of the years, may see this race
+of ours coming up, step by step, into the fullest possession of our
+industrial, economic and intellectual emancipation.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+The writer has in preparation, for early publication, a book which will
+deal more in detail with the subject of this pamphlet, presenting the
+names of all inventors, so far as ascertained, with the titles of their
+inventions and the dates and numbers of their patents, together with
+brief biographical sketches of many of the more active inventors.
+
+
+
+Published by THE CRISIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+Copyrighted, 1913, by Henry E. Baker
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colored Inventor, by Henry E. Baker
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