“For much of our history, when we think about the word ‘invention,’ it’s sort of freighted with these white, Eurocentric notions of what that means,” says Eric Hintz, a historian with the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. There were also the Black creators who came up with innovations that didn’t necessarily fit the traditional ideas of inventiveness. (Photo NIH)īlack inventors were also less involved in patenting activity between 18, during times of lynchings, race riots and segregation laws in the United States. Patricia Bath, seen here at her Los Angeles home in 1994, invented a new device and technique for cataract surgery. Societies, limited access to wealthy investors and mainstream banks for start-up capital to commercialize their inventions, and racial violence.ĭr. Other barriers Black inventors historically faced included less access to equal education, systematic exclusion from professional scientific and engineering “The inherent understanding of what an inventor is and was and could be - the framing of that term - eliminated the possibility for all Black folks and all marginalized people.” So, as you can imagine, all the perceptions, ideas about masculinity, maleness, power authority are all wrapped into this vision of inventiveness,” says Fouché, who also leads the National Science Foundation’s Social and Economic Sciences Division. “Invention was seen as this God-given ability. This deliberate early exclusion of Black inventors from the patent system and, in large part, the pantheon of great American inventors, was rooted in racist assumptions about the intellectual inferiority of Black people, according to Rayvon Fouché, a professor of American studies at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. (Courtesy of Johnson Research & Development Co., Inc) Lonnie Johnson carries the Super Soaker water gun toy, which he invented. “But when you completely exclude a group of people from access to the patent system, … exploiting their invention, then the natural result of that is, you look at the most important inventors and innovators in American history … and they pretty much are your stereotypical white male inventor, not because other people have not been innovative, too, it’s just these folks have been excluded from the patent system.” “We often count our country as being this place where innovation and entrepreneurship thrive,” Johnson says. It was largely innovated by enslaved Black people, but a white man named Eli Whitney obtained the patent for the invention. Modern-day research suggests that was the case with the technology behind the cotton gin - a device that separated cotton seeds from their fibers. Prior to that, the inventions of Black innovators were often claimed by their enslavers or other white people. Slavery wasn’t abolished until 1865, with the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, but enslaved Black people could not. Latimer got a patent for his invention in 1882, something countless Black innovators in the generations before him were unable to do.įree Black citizens could obtain patents from the U.S. Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the lightbulb, but it was Lewis Latimer, the son of formerly enslaved people, who patented a new filament that extended the lifespan of lightbulbs so they wouldn’t die out after a few days. “They did not have access to all these different systems that the United States puts in place to support inventors.” “There were some instances where Black inventors would compete with Alexander Graham Bell, with Thomas Edison, where their inventions were really just as good and just as transformative, but they just did not have access to the capital,” says Shontavia Johnson, an entrepreneur and associate vice president for entrepreneurship and innovation at Clemson University in South Carolina. These innovators were recognized for their inventions, but countless other inventors of color have gone largely unrecognized. From the three-light traffic signal, refrigerated trucks, automatic elevator doors, color monitors for desktop computers, to the shape of the modern ironing board, the clothes wringer, blood banks, laser treatment for cataracts, home security systems and the super-soaker children’s toy, many objects and services Americans use every day were invented by Black men and women.
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