9781422283271

Introduction

able to obtain patents were often not well compensated or celebrated (such as Thomas Jennings, a tailor from New York, who was awarded a patent in 1821 for a dry-cleaning process—the first instance of an African-American inventor being acknowledged by the US Patent Office). That situation changed somewhat thanks to the work of Henry E. Baker, a former Navy midshipman who later at- tended law school and went on to become Second Assistant Examiner at the Patent Office. Baker discovered some 1,200 African-American inven- tors, and about two-thirds of those gave permission for him to reveal their identities. (Such were the times that the other third feared that if consumers knew they were black, sales of their inventions would either decline sharply or stop al- together.) It is thanks in large part to Baker’s efforts that we know of the early inventors discussed in this volume, who did a great deal to, as he wrote, “multiply human comforts and minimize human misery” despite racism, lack of funds, and other formidable challenges. The world has come a long way since early Stone Age inventors created the first tools, but there are still plenty of comforts to be multiplied and miseries to be minimized. In the final chapter, find out more about what it takes to come up with an invention. •

Introduction

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