The Journal of Negro History Volume II Part 2

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Let us turn now to a consideration of those inventions made by colored inventors since the war period, and at a time when no obstacles stood in the way. With the broadening of their industrial opportunities, and the incentive of a freer market for the products of their talent, it was thought that the Negroes would correspondingly exhibit inventive genius, and the records abundantly prove this to have been true. But how have these records been made available? It has already been shown that no distinction as to race appears in the public records of the Patent Office, and for this reason the Patent Office has been repeatedly importuned to set in motion some scheme of inquiry that would disclose, as far as is possible, how many patents have been granted by the government for the inventions of Negroes. This has been done by the Patent Office on two different occasions. The first official inquiry was made by the Office at the request of the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, and the second at the request of the Pennsylvania Commission conducting the Emanc.i.p.ation Exposition at Philadelphia in 1913. In both instances the Patent Office sent out several thousand circular letters directed to prominent patent lawyers, large manufacturing firms, and to newspapers of wide circulation, asking them to inform the Commissioner of Patents of any authentic instances known by them to be such, in which the patents granted by the Office had been for inventions by Negroes.

The replies were numerous, interesting and informing. Every one of the several thousand that came to the Patent Office was turned over to the writer who, in his capacity as an employee of that department, very willingly a.s.sumed the additional task of a.s.sorting and recording them, verifying when possible the information presented, and extending the correspondence personally when this proved to be necessary either to trace a clew or clinch a fact. The information obtained in this way showed, first, that a very large number of colored inventors had consulted patent lawyers on the subject of getting patents on their inventions, but were obliged finally to abandon the project for lack of funds; secondly, that many colored inventors had actually obtained patents for meritorious inventions, but the attorneys were unable to give sufficient data to identify the cases specifically, inasmuch as they had kept no identifying record of the same; thirdly, that many patents had been taken out by the attorneys for colored clients who preferred not to have their racial ident.i.ty disclosed because of the probably injurious effect this might have upon the commercial value of their patents; and lastly, that more than a thousand authentic cases were fully identified by name of inventor, date and number of patent and t.i.tle of invention, as being the patents granted for inventions of Negroes. These patents represent inventions in nearly every branch of the industrial arts--in domestic devices, in mechanical appliances, in electricity through all its wide range of uses, in engineering skill and in chemical compounds. The fact is made quite clear that the names obtained were necessarily only a fractional part of the number granted patents.

It developed through these inquiries that some very important industries now in operation on a large scale in our country are based on the inventions of Negroes. Foremost among these is the gigantic enterprise known as The United Shoe Machinery Company of Boston. In a biographical sketch of its president, Mr. Sidney W. Winslow, a multimillionaire,[19] it is related that he claims to have laid the foundation of his immense fortune in the purchase of a patent for an invention by a Dutch Guiana Negro named Jan E. Matzeliger. This inventor was born in Dutch Guiana, September, 1852. His parents were a native Negro woman and her husband, a Dutch engineer, who had been sent there from Holland to direct the government construction works at that place. As a very young man Matzeliger came to this country and served an apprenticeship as a cobbler, first in Philadelphia and later in Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts. The hardships which he suffered gradually undermined his health and before being able to realize the full value of his invention, he pa.s.sed away in 1889 in the thirty-seventh year of his age.

He invented a machine for lasting shoes. This was the first appliance of its kind capable of performing all the steps required to hold a shoe on its last, grip and pull the leather down around the heel, guide and drive the nails into place and then discharge the completed shoe from the machine. This patent when bought by Mr. Winslow was made to form the nucleus of the great United Shoe Machinery Company, which now operates on a capital stock of more than twenty million dollars, gives regular employment to over 5,000 operatives, occupies with its factories more than 20 acres of ground, and represents the consolidation of over 40 subsidiary companies. The establishment and maintenance of this gigantic business enterprise forms one of the biggest items in the history of our country's industrial development.

Within the first twenty years following the formation of The United Shoe Machinery Company, in 1890, the product of American shoe manufacturers increased from $220,000,000 to $442,631,000, and during the same period the export of American shoes increased from $1,000,000 to $11,000,000, the increase being traceable solely to the superiority of the shoes produced by the new American machines, founded on the Matzeliger type. The cost of shoes was reduced more than 50 per cent.

by these machines and the quality improved correspondingly. The wages of workers greatly increased, the hours of labor diminished, and the factory conditions surrounding the laborers immensely improved. The improvement thus brought about in the quality and price of American shoes has made the Americans the best shod people in the world.[20]

That invention will serve as Matzeliger's towering monument far beyond our vision of years. Throughout all shoe-making districts of New England and elsewhere the Matzeliger type of machine is well known, and to this day it is frequently referred to in trade circles as the "n.i.g.g.e.r machine," the relic, perhaps, of a possible contemptuous reference to his racial ident.i.ty; and yet there were some newspaper accounts of his life in which it was denied that he had Negro blood in him. A certified copy of the death certificate of Matzeliger, which was furnished the writer by William J. Connery, Mayor of Lynn, on Oct.

23, 1912, states that Matzeliger was a mulatto.

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. E. MATZELIGER

LASTING MACHINE

NO. 274,207

PATENTED MAR. 20, 1883

AN ILl.u.s.tRATION SHOWING THE MODELS MADE BY MATZELIGER TO ILl.u.s.tRATE HIS INVENTIONS IN SHOE MACHINES.]

Another prosperous business growing out of the inventions of a colored man is The Ripley Foundry and Machine Company, of Ripley, Ohio, established by John P. Parker. He obtained several patents on his inventions, one being a "screw for Tobacco Presses," patented in September, 1884, and another for a similar device patented in May, 1885. Mr. Parker set up a shop in Ripley for the manufacture of his presses, and the business proved successful from the first. The small shop grew into a large foundry where upwards of 25 men were constantly employed. It was owned and managed by Mr. Parker till his death. The factory is still being operated, and on the business lines originated by the founder, but the ownership has pa.s.sed from the Parker family.

Another business, the development of which is due in large measure to the inventions of a colored man, Elijah McCoy, is that of making automatic lubricators for machinery. Mr. McCoy is regarded as a pioneer inventor in that line. He completed and patented his first lubricating cup in 1872. Since then he has patented both in this country and abroad nearly fifty different inventions relating princ.i.p.ally to the art of automatic lubrication machinery, but including also a considerable variety of other devices. His lubricating cup was at one time in quite general use on the locomotives of the leading railways of the Northwest, on the steamers of the Great Lakes, and in up-to-date factories throughout the country. He is still living in Detroit, Michigan, and still adding new inventions to his already lengthy list.

In completing and patenting upwards of 50 different inventions Granville T. Woods, late of New York, appears to have surpa.s.sed every other colored inventor in the number and variety of his inventions.

His inventive record began in 1884 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he then resided, and continued without interruption for over a quarter of a century. He pa.s.sed away January 30, 1910, in the city of New York, where he had carried on his business for several years immediately preceding. While his inventions relate princ.i.p.ally to electricity, the list also includes such as a steam boiler furnace, the subject of his first patent, obtained in June, 1884; an amus.e.m.e.nt apparatus, December, 1899; an incubator, August, 1900; and automatic airbrakes, in 1902, 1903, and 1905. His inventions in telegraphy include several patents for transmitting messages between moving trains, also a number of other transmitters. He patented fifteen inventions for electric railways, and as many more various devices for electrical control and distribution.

In the earlier stages of his career as a successful inventor he organized the Woods Electric Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. This company took over by a.s.signment many of his earlier patents; but as his reputation in the scientific world grew apace, and his inventions began to multiply in number and value, he seems to have found a ready market for them with some of the largest and most prosperous technical and scientific corporations in the United States. The official records of the United States Patent Office show that many of his patents were a.s.signed to such companies as the General Electric Company, of New York, some to the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, of Pennsylvania, others to the American Bell Telephone Company, of Boston, and still others to the American Engineering Company, of New York. So far as the writer is aware there is no inventor of the colored race whose creative genius has covered quite so wide a field as that of Granville T. Woods, nor one whose achievements have attracted more universal attention and favorable comment from technical and scientific journals both in this country and abroad.

Granville Woods' brother, Lyates Woods, is credited with uniting with Granville in the joint invention of several machines. Most of these consisted of electrical apparatuses, but two of them seem to have been of sufficient importance to attract the attention of such corporations as the Westinghouse Electric Company, of Pennsylvania. Patents No.

775,825, of March 29, 1904, and No. 795,243, of July 18, 1905, both for railway brakes, were a.s.signed by the Woods brothers to this company. The record shows that the American Bell Telephone Company purchased Woods' patent No. 315,386, granted April 7, 1885, for the latter's invention of an apparatus for transmitting messages by electricity. The same inventor sold to the General Electric Company, of New York, his patent No. 667,110, of January 29, 1901, on his invention for electric railways.

We should mention here also two other inventors of importance in the line of appliances for musical instruments, Mr. J. H. d.i.c.kinson and his son S. L. d.i.c.kinson, both of New Jersey. They have been granted more than a dozen patents for their appliances, mostly in the line of devices connected with the player piano machinery. They are still engaged in the business of inventing, and both are holding responsible and lucrative positions with first-cla.s.s music corporations.

The inventions of W. B. Purvis, of Philadelphia, in machinery for making paper bags are reported to be responsible for much of the great improvement made in that art; and his patents, more than a dozen in number on that subject alone, are said to have brought him good financial returns. Many of them are recorded as having been sold to the Union Paper Bag Company, of New York.

Another instance is that of an invention capable of playing an important part in the cotton raising industry. This was a cotton-picking machine covered by two patents granted to A. P. Albert, a native Louisiana Creole. Mr. Albert invented a second machine which is said to have the merit of perfect practicability, a feat not easy of accomplishment in that cla.s.s of machinery. Special significance is attached to this case because of the inventor's experience in putting through his application for a patent. He was obliged to appeal from the adverse decision of the princ.i.p.al examiner to the Board of Examiners-In-Chief, a body of highly trained legal and technical experts appointed to pa.s.s upon the legal and mechanical merits of an invention turned down by the primary examiners. Albert appeared before this Board in his own defense with a brief prepared entirely by himself, and won his case through his thorough painstaking presentation of all the legal and technical points involved. Mr.

Albert is a graduate of the Law Department of Howard University in Washington, and is connected with the United States Civil Service as an examiner in the Pension Office.

Other colored men in the Departmental Civil Service at Washington have obtained patents for valuable inventions. W. A. Lavalette patented two printing presses, Shelby J. Davidson a mechanical tabulator and adding machine, Robert A. Pelham a pasting machine, Andrew F. Hilyer two hot air register attachments; and Andrew D. Washington a shoe horn. Nearly a dozen patents have been granted Benjamin F. Jackson, of Ma.s.sachusetts, on his inventions. These consisted of a heating apparatus, a matrix drying apparatus, a gas burner, an electrotyper's furnace, a steam boiler, a trolley wheel controller, a tank signal, and a hydrocarbon burner system.

It is not generally known that Frederick J. Loudin, who brought fame and fortune to one of the leading Negro universities in the South by carrying the Fisk Jubilee Troupe of Singers on several successful concert tours around the world, is also ent.i.tled to a place on the list of Negro inventors. He obtained two patents for his inventions, one for a fastener for the meeting rails of sashes, December, 1893, and the other a key fastener in January, 1894. Several colored inventors have also applied their inventive skill to solving the problem of aerial navigation, with the result that some of them have been granted patents for their inventions in airships. Among these are J. F. Pickering, of Haiti, February 20, 1900; James Smith, California, October, 1912; W. G. Madison, Iowa, December, 1912; and J. E. Whooter, Missouri, 2 patents, October 30 and November 3, 1914. It has been reported that the invention in automatic car coupling covered by the patent to Andrew J. Beard, of Alabama, dated November 23, 1897, was sold by the patentee to a New York car company, for more than fifty thousand dollars. This same patentee has obtained patents on more than a half dozen other inventions, mostly in the same line.

Willie H. Johnson, of Texas, obtained several patents on his inventions, two of them being for an appliance for overcoming "dead center" in motion; one for a compound engine, and another for a water boiler. Joseph Lee, a colored hotel keeper, of Boston, completed and patented three inventions in dough-kneading machines, and is reported as having succeeded in creating a considerable market for them in the bread-making industry in New England. Brinay Smartt, of Tennessee, made inventions in reversing valve gears, and received several patents on them in 1905, 1906, 1909, 1911 and 1913.

The path of the inventor is not always an easy one. The experiences of many of them often lie along paths that seem like the proverbial "way of the transgressor." This was fitly exemplified in the case of Henry A. Bowman, a colored inventor in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, who devised and patented a new method of making flags. After he had established a paying business on his invention, the information came to him that a New York rival was using the same invention and "cutting" his business. Bowman brought suit for infringement, but, as he informed the writer, the suit went against him on a legal technicality, and being unable to carry the case through the appellate tribunals, the destruction of his business followed.

One inventor, J. W. Benton, of Kentucky, completed an invention of a derrick for hoisting, and being without sufficient means to travel to Washington to look after the patent, he packed the model in a grip, and walked from Kentucky to Washington in order to save carfare. He obtained his patent, October 2, 1900.

One other instance in which the inventor regards his experience as one of special hardship is the case of E. A. Robinson of Chicago. He obtained several patents for his inventions, among which are an electric railway trolley, September 19, 1893; casting composite and other car wheels, November 23, 1897; a trolley wheel, March 22, 1898; a railway switch, September 17, 1907; and a rail, May 5, 1908. He regards the second patent as covering his most valuable invention. He says that this was infringed on by two large corporations, the American Car and Foundry Company, and the Chicago City Railway Company. He endeavored to stop them by litigation, but the court proceedings in the case[21] appear to reveal some rather discouraging aspects of a fight waged between a powerless inventor on the one side and two powerful corporations on the other. So far as is known, the case is still pending.

These instances of hardships, however, in the lot of inventors are in no sense peculiar to colored inventors. They merely form a part of the hard struggle always present in our American life--the struggle for the mighty dollar; and in the field of invention as elsewhere the race is not always to the swift. A man may be the first to conceive a new idea, the first to translate that idea into tangible, practical form and reduce it to a patent, but often that "slip betwixt the cup and the lip" leaves him the last to get any reward for his inventive genius.

Because of the very many interesting instances at hand the temptation is very great to extend this enumeration beyond the intended limits of this article by specific references to the large number of colored men and women who in many lands and other days have given unmistakable evidence of really superior scientific and technical ability. But this temptation the writer must resist. Let it suffice to say that the citations already given show conclusively that the color of a man's skin has not yet entirely succeeded in barring his admission to the domain of science, nor in placing upon his brow the stamp of intellectual inferiority.

HENRY E. BAKER,

_a.s.sistant Examiner, United States Patent Office_.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] "Twentieth Century Negro Literature," by W. W. Culp, page 399.

Published by J. L. Nichols Co., Atlanta, Ga.

[16] Opinions of Attorney General of the U. S., Vol. 9, page 171.

[17] An act to establish a Patent Office, and to provide for granting patents for new and useful discoveries, inventions, improvements and designs. Statutes at large of the Confederate States of America, 1861-64, page 148.

[18] Desdunes, Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire, 101.

[19] _Munsey's Magazine_, August, 1912, p. 723.

[20] "Short History of American Shoemaking," by Frederick A. Gannon, Salem, Ma.s.s., 1912.

[21] A copy of this was shown the writer September, 1915.

ANTHONY BENEZET

During the eighteenth century the Quakers gradually changed from the introspective state of seeking their own welfare into the altruistic mood of helping those who shared with them the heritage of being despised and rejected of men. After securing toleration for their sect in the inhospitable New World they began to think seriously of others whose lot was unfortunate. The Negroes, therefore, could not escape their attention. Almost every Quaker center declared its att.i.tude toward the bondmen, varying it according to time and place. From the first decade of the eighteenth century to the close of the American Revolution the Quakers pa.s.sed through three stages in the development of their policy concerning the enslavement of the blacks. At first they directed their attention to preventing their own adherents from partic.i.p.ating in it, then sought to abolish the slave trade and finally endeavored to improve the condition of all slaves as a preparation for emanc.i.p.ation.

Among those who largely determined the policy of the Quakers during that century were William Burling[22] of Long Island, Ralph Sandiford of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Lay of Abington, John Woolman of New Jersey and Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia. Early conceiving an abhorrence to slavery, Burling denounced it by writing anti-slavery tracts and portraying its unlawfulness at the yearly meetings of the Quakers.

Ralph Sandiford followed the same methods and in his "_Mystery of Iniquity_" published in 1729, forcefully exposed the iniquitous practice in a stirring appeal in behalf of the Africans.[23] Benjamin Lay, not contented with the mere writing of tracts, availed himself of the opportunity afforded by frequent contact with those in power to interview administrative officials of the slave colonies, undauntedly demanding that they bestir themselves to abolish the evil system.[24]

Struck by the wickedness of the inst.i.tution while traveling through the South prior to the Revolution, John Woolman spent his remaining years as an itinerant preacher, urging the members of his society everywhere to eradicate the evil.[25] Anthony Benezet, going a step further, rendered greater service than any of these as an anti-slavery publicist and at the same time persistently toiled as a worker among the Negroes.

Benezet was born in St. Quentin in Picardy in France in 1713. He was a descendant of a family of Huguenots who after all but establishing their faith in France saw themselves denounced and persecuted as heretics and finally driven from the country by the edict of Nantes.

One of the reformer's family, Francois Benezet, perished on the scaffold at Montpelier in 1755, fearlessly proclaiming to the mult.i.tude of spectators the doctrines for which he had been condemned to die.[26] Unwilling to withstand the imminent persecution, however, John Stephen Benezet, Anthony's father, fled from France to Holland but after a brief stay in that country moved to London in 1715.

After being liberally educated by his father, Benezet served an apprenticeship in one of the leading establishments of London to prepare himself for a career in the commercial world. He had some difficulty, however, in coming to the conclusion that he would be very useful in this field. He, therefore, soon abandoned this idea and followed mechanical pursuits until he moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1731. There his brothers easily established themselves in a successful business and endeavored to induce Anthony to join them, but the youth was still of the impression that this was not his calling. His life's work was finally determined by his early connection with the Quakers, to the religious views and testimonies of whom he rigidly adhered. He continued his mechanical pursuit and later undertook manufacturing at Washington, Delaware, but feeling that neither of these satisfied his desire to be thoroughly useful he decided to return to Philadelphia to devote his life to religion and humanity.[27]