“Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation” by Rayvon Fouche (professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801882702

This book caught my attention, as I developed an interest in better understanding the experience and role of African-American inventors before the civil rights movement, particularly after I saw that the home address listed on a patent for one of the featured inventors, Lewis H. Lattimer, was in Somerville, Massachusetts, which is where I lived.

Fouche provides a scholarly and balanced analysis of the "myths" of the black inventor in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Across many cultures, great inventors are routinely lionized as intellecual heroes and are widely known for advancing society by virtue of their inventions (e.g., Thomas Edison and his light bulb). But often, and particularly with African-American inventors, we know very little about the inventor, himself (or, on occasion, herself).

Were these early African-American inventors really heroic figures? What drove them and what was their experience? In the case of the early black inventor, was promoting the standing of black Americans toward racial equality even a priority for them? And how did public opinion toward their race hurt (or help) them along the way?

Fouche explores these issues and more as he unravels the stories behind the following three prominent African-American inventors around the turn of the last century: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Lattimer, and Shelby J. Davidson.

Woods’ story was particularly intriguing. Born in Australia in 1856, with mixed aborigine, Malay, and African ancestry, Woods (like many inventors of all races) demonstrated fierce determination and persistence in attempting to capitalize his inventions and bring them to market. There appears to be no evidence that he viewed himself as a champion of the African-American race or even that he felt particularly strong ties toward it. Rather, he seemed to be more of a quintessential inventor, focused doggedly on inventing, advancing technology and obtaining a degree of wealth from his inventions.

Perhaps ironically, many of Woods' inventions were directed to train and railway technology (particularly electronic communication systems for trains), at a time when African-Americans could not ride along whites aboard trains in America. And contrary to many popular myths, his myriad of inventions never brought him great wealth. All inventors face significant hurdles in capitalizing on inventions, the hurdles that Woods faced were particularly high and repeated, though many appeared to have little or no relation to his race.

Mirroring the experience of many inventors still today, Woods fell for the pitch of a sham invention promotion firm when first poised on the verge of success. In New York City, Woods came across an advertisement for the American Patent Agency, which was managed by an unscrupulous patent attorney, James Zerbe, and agreed to form a joint venture coordinated by Zerbe to capitalize on the invention. Though seemingly savvy, Zerbe stole Woods' inventions. Woods' only vindication was (in coordination with other victims of the firm) ultimately outsmarting and outmaneuvering Zerbe and succeeding in getting Zerbe criminally convicted of theft and disbarred.

As Fouche explained, "I do not think Zerbe attempted to steal Woods's inventions specifically because was black. Zerbe had quite a history of cheating anyone he could: white men, women, whomever. As far his business was concerned, he was an equal opportunity swindler."

Fouche also noted that race was a double-edged sword for Woods. Certainly, African-Americans faced great discrimination in America at that time, though Woods also appeared to capitalize on his race, when he found the opportunity, for example in generating sympathy in court against Zerbe and in attracting public interest and curiosity in his work, as prolific black inventors were not particularly common in America at that time.

Between the turn of the century and his death in 1910, Woods patented 22 inventions, many of which were assigned to General Electric and Westinghouse.

Described as politically conservative, Lewis H. Latimer rejected as futile the efforts at that time to reassemble a black culture post-Reconstruction. Instead, Fouche reports that Latimer believed that the path forward was via assimilation into white culture. Lewis Latimer's father, George was an escaped slave from Virginia. His freedom was secured through the work and financing of white Boston-area abolitionists, and this history provided Lewis with a nuanced and complex attitude toward white society.

Latimer occasioned upon a fortuitous opportunity when he heard that the Boston patent firm of Crosby, Halstead & Gould was looking for "a colored boy with a taste for drawing" from an African-American woman who cleaned the firm's offices. The teen-aged Latimer landed that position and worked his way up, starting as office boy, becoming a drawing assistant and then securing the position of chief patent drawing draftsman when his predecessor left the firm; and he even drafted telephone drawings for a patent application from Alexander Graham Bell.

By his twenties, Latimer, himself was inventing, and he secured his first patent in 1874 for an "improvement in water-closet for railroad-cars." Latimer later left the Boston area to join his sister in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In Bridgeport, a chance interaction with Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine, left Maxim impressed with Latimer's talents; and Maximer hired Latimer as as draftsman for the United States Electric Lighting Company, which allowed Latimer to tap into the nascent market of electric lighting, and while there, he continued inventing improved lamp designs for the company; and by 1881 he was superintendent of the company's incandescent lamp department, supervising forty men.

After a challenging stint in finding new employment amid post-Reconstruction racial tensions, Latimer was later hired by Thomas Edison's "Edison Company," which later became General Electric, where Latimer became a member of the legal department and interacted on a personal level with Thomas Edison, himself, evidencing that Latimer was well-regarded and generally accepted within Edison's enterprise.

Finally, Shelby J. Davidson was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1868 and graduated of Howard University (but not without having to win a contested dismissal proceeding brought by the university's board of trustees via his own skilled and shrewd legal arguments). Further study of the law, led Davidson to admission to the Kentucky bar and to the DC bar. Davidson then took a position with the United States Treasury Department's Post office Division, where Davidson invented adding machines to increase the division's efficiency and productivit by automating auditing procedures. Davidson used his inventive contributions to secure promotions and temporarily improve his standing within his division and to advance socially and culturally within the black community. Nevertheless, Davidson's rise within the Treasury Department halted and reversed after a dispute over the rights to Davidson's adding machines, leading to Davidson's resignation from government service in 1912. By that time, though, Davidson had already started a real estate business for colored people on the side, and he began a legal practice. Davidson was financially successful in these endeavors, and he rose to prominent leadership positions within the NAACP.

One of the conclusions I drew from these stories featuring an independent inventor, a corporate inventor and a government inventor, which perhaps should not at all be surprising, was that each of these early African-American inventors was more or less just like any other inventor--intellectually brilliant, creative, un-dissuadable and ambitious with a love of technological innovation. These motivations, for them, seemed far more prominent than any notions associated with race, notwithstanding the racial discrimination that each faced in various forms throughout their lives. None became particularly wealthy via their patents, though Latimer and Davidson became solidly middle-class via other endeavors.

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