BLACK INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS

  • Philip Emeagwali, Father of Internet


    PAPER: AFRICANS
    CHESS: AFRICANS
    ALPHABET: AFRICANS
    MEDICINE: AFRICANS
    CIVILIZATION: AFRICANS
    AEROPLANE PROPELLING: JAMES S. ADAMS
    BISCUIT CUTTER: A.P.ASHBOURNE
    FOLDING BED: L.C.BAILEY
    COIN CHANGER:JAMES A.BAUER
    ROTARY ENGINE:ANDREW J. BEARD
    CAR COUPLER:ANDREW J. BEARD
    LETTER BOX: G.E BECKET
    STAINLESS STEEL PADS:AFRED BENJAMIN
    CORN PLANTER:HENRY BLAIR
    COTTON PLANTER:HENRY BLAIR
    IRONING BOARD:SARAH BOONE
    PACE MAKER CONTROLS: OTIS BOYKIN
    GUIDED-MISSILE:OTIS BOYKIN
    TORPEDO DISCHARGER: H.BRADBERRY
    STREET SWEEPER: CHARLES BROOKS
    DISPOSABLE SYRINGE: PHIL BROOKS
    HORSE BRIDLE BIT: L.F. BROWN
    HOME SECURITY SYSTEM: MARIE BROWN
    HORSESHOE:OSCAR E. BROWN
    LAWN MOWER:JOHN A. BURR
    TYPEWRITER: BURRIDGE & MARSHMAN
    TRAIN ALARM: R.A BUTLER
    IMAGE CONVERTER: GEO.CARRUTHERS
    FOR RADIATOR DETECTOR: GEO. CARRUTHERS
    PEANUT BUTTER: GEO.W. CARVER
    PAINTS AND STAINS: GEO.W. CARVER
    LOTIONS AND SOAPS: GEO.W. CARVER
    PILLOW UTILIZING AIR/WATER: LARRY L. CHRISTIE
    TRACK ATHLETE TRAINER: JOHN CLARK
    AUTHOMATIC FISHING REEL: GEORGE COOK
    ICE CREAM MOLD: A.L CRALLE
    HORSE RIDING SADDLE: WM.D.DAVIS
    SHOE: W.A DEITZ
    ARM FOR RECORD PLAYER: JOSEPH DICKINSON
    PLAYER PIANO: JOSEPH DICKINSON
    DOOR STOP: O.DORSEY
    DOOR KNOB: O.DORSEY
    PHOTO PRINT WASH: CLATONIA J. DORTICUS
    PHOTO EMBROSSING MACHINE: CLAYTONIA J. DORTICUS
    POSTAL LETTER BOX: P.B DOWNING
    BLOOD PLASMA: DR. CHARLES DREW
    TOILET (COMMODE): T. ELKINS
    FURNITURE CASTER: DAVID A. FISHER
    GUITAR: ROBERT FLEMMING JR.
    IKENGA-GYROPLANE: DAVID GITTENS
    IKENGA/MK3-AUTOMOBILE:DAVID GITTENS
    SKOOTERBOARD: DAVID GITTENS
    GOLF TEE: GEORGE F. GRANT
    MOTOR: J. GREGORY
    LANTERN: MICHEAL HARVNEY
    THERMO HAIR CURLERS:SOLOMON HARPER
    SPACE SHUTTLE RETRIEVAL ARM: WM. HARWELL
    ICE CREAM: AUGUSTUS JACKSON
    GAS BURNER: B.F. JACKSON
    KITCHEN TABLE: H.A. JACKSON
    PROGRAM'BLE REMOTE CONTROL: JOSEPH N. JACKSON
    VIDEO COMMANDER: JOSEPH N. JACKSON
    O.F. CABLE W/NON-MET.SHEAT: ARTIS JENKINS
    BICYCLE FRAME: ISSAC R. JOHNSON
    SANI-PHONE: JERRY JOHNSON
    WRENCH: JOHN A. JOHNSON
    SUPER SOAKER: LONNIE JOHNSON
    EYE PROTECTOR: P.JOHNSON
    EGG BEATER: W.JOHNSON
    DEFROSTER: FREDERICK M. JONES
    AIR CONDITIONING UNIT: FREDERICK M. JONES
    TWO-CYCLE GAS ENGINE: FREDERICK M. JONES
    INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE: FREDERICK M. JONES
    STARTER GENERATOR: FREDERICK M. JONES
    REFRIGERATION CONTROLS: FREDERICK M. JONES
    BOTTLE CAPS: JONES & LONG
    CLOTHES DRESSER: JOHN H. JORDAN
    ELECTRIC LAMP: LATIMER & NICHOLS
    PRINTING PRESS: W.A. LAVALETTE
    LASER FUELS: LESTER LEE
    PRESSURE COOKER: MAURICE W. LEE
    ENVELOPE SEAL: F.W LESLIE
    WINDOW CLEANER: A.L. LEWIS
    PENCIL SHARPNER: JOHN L. LOVE
    FIRE EXTINGUISHER: TOM J. MARSHALL
    LOCK: W.A. MARTIN
    SHOE LASTING MACHINE:JAN MATZELIGER
    LUBRICATORS: ELIJAH McCOY
    ROCKET CATAPULT: HUGH MACDONALD
    ELEVATOR: ALEXANDER MILES
    GAS MASK: GARRETT MORGAN
    TRAFFIC SIGNAL: GARRETT MORGAN
    HAIR BRUSH: LYDA NEWMAN
    HEATING FURNACE: ALICE H. PARKER
    AIR SHIP (BLIMP): J.F.PICKERING
    FOLDING CHAIR: PURDY / SADGWAR
    HAND STAMP: W.B. PURVIS
    FOUNTAIN PEN: W.B. PURVIS
    DUST PAN: L.P. RAY
    INSECT DESTROYER GUN: A.C. RICHARDSON
    BABY BUGGY: W.H.RICHARDSON
    SUGAR REFINEMENT: N.RILLIEUX
    PRESSING COMB: WALTER SAMMONS
    HAIR DRESSING DEVICE: WALTER SAMMONS
    CLOTHES DRIER: G.T. SAMPSON
    CELLULAR PHONE: HENRY SAMPSON
    URINALYSIS MACHINE:DEWEY SANDERSON
    HYDRAULIC SHOCK ABSORBER: RALPH SANDERSON
    CURTAIN ROD: S.R. SCOTTRON
    MULTI-STAGE ROCKET: ADOLF SHAMMS
    LAWN SPRINKLER: J.W. SMITH
    AUTOMATIC GEAR SHIFT: R.B. SPIKES
    REFRIGERATOR: J. STANDARD
    MOP: T.W. STEWART
    CATTLE ROPING APPARATUS: DARRYL STEWART
    STAIRCLIMBING WHEELCHAIR: RUFUS J. WEAVER
    POLM.WATER REDUC.PAINT: MORRIS B WILLIAMS
    HELICOPTER: PAUL E. WILLIAMS
    FIRE ESCAPE LADDER: J.B. WINTERS

    TELEPHONE TRANSMITTER: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    ELECTRIC CUT-OFF SWITCH: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    RELAY INSTRUMENT: GRANVILLE T.WOODS
    TELEPHONE SYSTEM: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    ELECTRO MECH BRAKE: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    GALVANIC BATTERY: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    ELECTRIC RAILWAY SYSTEM: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    ROLLER COASTER: GRANVILLE T. WOODS
    AUTO AIR BRAKE: GRANVILLE T. WOODS


    r813a.art George Washington Carver was born into slavery. By the late 1890s, after overcoming poverty and racial discrimination, he became the director of agricultural teaching and research at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. Carver discovered more than 450 products that could be made from the peanut and other cultivated plants. He made it possible for many Southern farmers to diversify their crops, and became known as "the miracle worker" throughout the South. This photograph, taken by Clifton Johnson, a pioneer of documentary photography, shows Carver (left) with a student in the woodland at Tuskegee. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery. Photograph of George Washington Carver (1864-1943), about 1900, by Clifton Johnson (1865-1940), gelatin silver print -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to American Inventors and Inventions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- carver.art George Washington Carver Born Circa 1860 - Died January 5, 1943 Cosmetic and Process of Producing the Same; Paint and Stain and Process of Producing the Same Patent Nos. 1,522,176; 1,541,478 Inducted 1990 Click Here to listen to audio If you do not have the RealAudio plug-in, you can get it here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agricultural chemist George Washington Carver developed crop-rotation methods for conserving nutrients in soil and discovered hundreds of new uses for crops such as the peanut, which created new markets for farmers, especially in the South. Born of slave parents in Diamond Grove, Missouri, Carver was rescued from Confederate kidnappers as an infant. He began his education in Newton County in southwest Missouri, where he worked as a farm hand and studied in a one-room schoolhouse. He went on to excel at Minneapolis High School in Kansas. Though denied admission to Highland University because of his race, Carver gained acceptance to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, in 1887. Intent on a science career, he transferred to Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1891 and gained a B.S. in 1894 and an M.S. in agriculture in 1897. Later that year Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, convinced Carver to come south and serve as the school's director of agriculture. At Tuskegee, Carver developed his crop rotation method, which alternated nitrate producing legumes-such as peanuts and peas-with cotton, which depletes soil of its nutrients. Following Carver's lead, southern farmers soon began planting peanuts one year and cotton the next. While many of the peanuts were used to feed livestock, large surpluses quickly developed. Carver then developed 325 different uses for the extra peanuts-from cooking oil to printers ink. When he discovered that the sweet potato and the pecan also enriched depleted soils, Carver found almost 20 uses for these crops, including synthetic rubber and material for paving highways. Upon his death, Carver contributed his life savings to establish a research institute at Tuskegee. His birthplace was declared a national monument in 1953. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Sites About George Washington Carver: Great African-American Heros at The Piedmont Area Journal George Washington Carver's Products from Peanuts. George Washington Carver National Monument. Tuskegee University -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GARRETT A. MORGAN TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSPORTATION FUTURES PROGRAM EDUCATING TOMORROW'S TRANSPORTATION WORKFORCE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- morgan.art An American Inventor Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. was an American inventor whose curiosity and innovation led him to develop several commercial products, the successors of which are still in use today. A practical man of humble beginnings, Morgan devoted his life to creating items that made the lives of common people safer and more convenient. Among his creations was the three-position traffic signal, a traffic management device that greatly improved safety along America's streets and roadways. Morgan's technology was the basis for the modern-day traffic signal and was a significant contribution to development of what we now know as Intelligent Transportation Systems. The Inventor's Early Life Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. was born in Paris, Kentucky on March 4, 1877. His parents were former slaves. Morgan spent his early childhood attending school and working with his brothers and sisters on the family farm. He left Kentucky while still a teenager, moving north to Cincinnati, Ohio in search of employment. An industrious youth, Morgan spent most of his adolescence working as a handyman for a wealthy Cincinnati landowner. Similar to many African Americans of his generation, whose circumstances compelled them to begin working at an early age, Morgan's formal education ended after elementary school. Eager to expand his knowledge, however, the precocious teenager hired a tutor and continued his studies in English grammar while living in Cincinnati. In 1895, Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked as a sewing machine repair man for a clothing manufacturer. Experimenting with gadgets and materials to discover better ways of performing his trade became Morgan's passion. News of his proficiency for fixing things traveled fast and led to numerous job opportunities with various manufacturing firms throughout the Cleveland area. Morgan opened his own sewing equipment and repair shop in 1907. It was the first of several businesses he would start. In 1909, he expanded the enterprise to include a tailoring shop which retained 32 employees. The new company made coats, suits and dresses, all sewn with equipment the budding inventor had made himself. In 1920 Morgan started the Cleveland Call newspaper. As the years progressed, he became a prosperous and widely respected businessman. His prosperity enabled him to purchase a home and an automobile. Morgan's experiences driving through the streets of Cleveland are what led him to invent the nation's first patented three-position traffic signal. The Three-Position Traffic Signal The first American-made automobiles were introduced to U.S. consumers shortly before the turn of the century. Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 and with it American consumers began to discover the adventures of the open road. At that time, it was not uncommon for bicycles, animal-powered carts and motor vehicles to share the same thoroughfares with pedestrians. Accidents frequently occurred between the vehicles. After witnessing a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage, Morgan was convinced that something should be done to improve traffic safety. While other inventors are reported to have experimented with and even marketed their own three-position traffic signals, Garrett A. Morgan was the first to apply for and acquire a U.S. patent for such a device. The patent was granted on November 20, 1923. Morgan later had the technology patented in Great Britain and Canada as well. Prior to Morgan's invention, most of the traffic signals in use featured only two positions: Stop and Go. Manually operated, these two-position traffic signals were an improvement over no signal at all, but because they allowed no interval between the Stop and Go commands, collisions at busy intersections were common during the transition moving from one street to the other. Another problem with the two-position traffic signals was the susceptibility to human error. Operator fatigue invariably resulted in erratic timing of the Stop and Go command changes, which confused both drivers and pedestrians. At night, when traffic officers were off duty, motorists frequently ignored the signals altogether. The Morgan traffic signal was a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: Stop, Go and an all-directional stop position. The third position halted traffic in all directions before it allowed travel to resume on either of the intersection's perpendicular roads. This feature not only made it safer for motorists to pass through intersections, but also allowed pedestrians to cross more safely. At night, or at other times when traffic was minimal, the Morgan signal could be positioned in a half-mast posture, alerting approaching motorists to proceed through the intersection with caution. The half-mast position had the same signaling effect as the flashing red and yellow lights of today's traffic signals. Morgan's traffic management technology was used throughout North America until it was replaced by the red, yellow and green-light traffic signals currently used around the world. The inventor eventually sold the rights to his traffic signal to the General Electric Corporation for $40,000. Shortly before his death, in 1963, Morgan was awarded a citation for the traffic signal by the U.S. Government. Another Significant Contribution to Public Safety In 1912, Morgan received a patent on a Safety Hood and Smoke Protector. Two years later, a refined model of this early gas mask won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Sanitation and Safety, and another gold medal from the International Association of Fire Chiefs. On July 25, 1916, Morgan made national news for using his gas mask to rescue several men trapped during an explosion in an underground tunnel beneath Lake Erie. Following the rescue, Morgan's company was bombarded with requests from fire departments around the country that wished to purchase the new life-saving masks. The Morgan gas mask was later refined for use by U.S. soldiers during World War I. As word spread across North America and England about Morgan's life-saving inventions, such as the gas mask and the traffic signal, demand for these products grew far beyond his home town. He was frequently invited to conventions and public exhibitions around the country to show how his inventions worked. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett A. Morgan Home K-5 | 6-8 | 9-12 | College | Life-Long Learning | Instructional Aids Other Links | FHWA Home -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Office of Human Resources Federal Highway Administration - United States Department of Transportation woods.art The Multiplex Telegraph Granville T. Woods (1856-1910) is known to many as "The Black Edison," because both were great inventors who came from disadvantaged childhoods. But unlike Edison, Woods was considered fortunate to receive an education to help him on the road to his inventions. In the late nineteenth century few African-American children ever saw the inside of a classroom. Woods further educated himself by working in railroad machine shops and steel mills, and by reading about electricity. He often had friends check out library books for him, since African-Americans were excluded from many libraries at the time. Woods managed to scrape together enough knowledge of electrical engineering to invent "telegraphony," a process that was later purchased by Alexander Graham Bell's company. Allowing operators to send and receive messages more quickly than before, telegraphony combined features of both the telephone and telegraph. The Bell Company's purchase of this invention enabled Woods to become a full-time inventor. Among his later inventions was the multiplex telegraph. A success in the powerful railroad industry of the late nineteenth century, the device not only helped dispatchers locate trains, but also allowed moving trains to communicate by telegraph. This invention was so useful that Woods found himself fighting patent suits filed by none other than Thomas Edison. Woods eventually won, but Edison continued to pursue the telegraph by offering Woods a lucrative partnership in one of Edison's businesses. Woods refused, preferring to be independent. [Aug. 1996] woodf.art | Invention Dimension Home | The Lemelson-MIT Program | Inventor of the Week | | Inventor of the Week Archives | Invention Related Links & Resources |