There is no branch of technical and scientific industry in our country
that is at all comparable in scope and results with the business of
perfecting inventions. These constitute the basis on which nearly all
our great manufacturing enterprises are conducted, both as to the
machinery employed and the articles produced. So vast is the field
covered by inventors, and so industriously do they apply their talent
to it that patents for new and useful inventions are now being granted
them by our government at the rate of more than one hundred a day for
every day that the office is open for business. And when one considers
the enormous part played by American inventors in the economic,
industrial and financial development of our country, it becomes a
matter of importance to ascertain what share in this great work is
done by the American Negro.
The average American seems not to know that the Negro has contributed
very materially to this result. Not knowing it, he does not believe
it, and not believing it he easily advances to the mental attitude of
being ready to assert that the Negro has done absolutely nothing worth
while in the field of invention. This conclusion necessarily grows out
of the traditional attitude of the average American on the question of
the capacity of the Negro for high scientific and technical
achievement. This state of mind on the part of the general public is
not perceptibly changed by the well-authenticated reports now and then
of meritorious inventions in many lines of experiment made by Negroes
in various parts of the country, notwithstanding the fact that these
reports are frequently made through channels that would seem to leave
nothing to doubt.
It has always been and presumably always will be difficult for truth
to outrun a falsehood. One instance of the way in which such false and
erroneous impressions of the Negro's capacity and achievement gain
currency and fix themselves in the public mind is shown sometimes in
the campaign methods of some politicians. One of these, a Marylander,
addressing a political gathering in his native State in behalf of his
own candidacy for Congress, a few years ago declared that the Negro
was not entitled to vote because he had never evinced sufficient
capacity to justify such a privilege, and that not one of the race had
ever yet reached the dignity of an inventor. It is not easy to
understand how a gentleman of the requisite qualifications to
represent an intelligent constituency acceptably in the Congress of
the United States could so palpably pervert the truth in a matter on
which he could so easily have rightly informed himself. At the time
when this statement was made, 1903, in Talbot County, Maryland, there
was on the shelves of the Library of Congress a book[15] containing a
chapter on "The Negro as an Inventor," and citing several hundred
patents granted by our government for inventions by Negroes. And still
another instance is that of a leading newspaper of Richmond, which
some time ago published the bold statement that of the many thousands
of patents granted to the inventors in this country annually not a
single patent had ever been granted to a colored man. These and
similar general statements which make no mention of exceptions admit
of but one interpretation. The wish may be father to the thought, but
the truth is not father to their words.
In the cause of truth it is very gratifying to the writer to be able
to show that notwithstanding the frequency and the persistency of
these misrepresentations, the facts are gradually coming to the front
to prove that the Negro not only now but in the remote past exhibited
considerable of the inventive genius which has been so instrumental in
the development of our country. In the ordinary course of
investigation along this particular line the official records of the
U. S. Patent Office must necessarily be referred to in order to
ascertain the number of patents granted either for a given class of
inventors, or to a certain geographical group of citizens, as by State
or nationality, or for a given period of time. But, voluminous as are
these records, and various as are the items they cover, they make
almost no disclosure of the fact that any of the multitude of patents
that are granted daily are for inventions by Negroes. The solitary
exception to this statement is the case of Henry Blair, of Maryland,
to whom were granted two patents on corn harvesters, one in 1834, the
other in 1836. In both cases he is designated in the official records
as a "colored man." To the uninformed this very exception might appear
conclusive, but it is not. It has long been the fixed policy of the
Patent Office to make no distinction as to race in the records of
patents granted to American citizens. All American inventors stand on
a level before the Patent Office. It may perhaps be an open question
whether, in the enforcement of such a policy, the advantages outweigh
the disadvantages as it regards colored inventors.
In the period preceding the Civil War mechanical inventions of merit
by colored persons were not numerous, so far as the investigation has
shown, but this was also true of all classes of inventors of that
time. With the great majority of slaves the question uppermost among
them was how to effect their freedom, and those who were fortunately
gifted with an active intelligence and some vision were, for the most
part, using their mental faculties to devise some plan to interest
others in their efforts for emancipation. This situation would
obviously lend itself more readily to developing literary talent and
oratorical ability than to producing machinists, engineers or
inventors. Hence the preachers and teachers and orators of the colored
race that here and there rose above the masses greatly outnumbered the
inventors. But it should be remembered also in this connection that in
the period just mentioned the mechanical industries of the South were
carried on mostly by slaves, and that bits of history gathered here
and there show that many of the simple mechanical contrivances of the
day were devised by the Negro in his effort to minimize the exactions
of his daily toil. None of these inventions were patented by the
United States as being the inventions of slaves; and it is quite
conceivable that some inventions of value perfected by this class will
be forever lost sight of through the attitude at that time of the
Federal Government on that subject. In 1858 Jeremiah S. Black,
Attorney-General of the United States, confirmed a decision of the
Secretary of the Interior, on appeal from the Commissioner of Patents,
refusing to grant a patent on an invention by a slave, either to the
slave as the inventor, or to the master of the latter, on the ground
that, not being a citizen, the slave could neither contract with the
government nor assign his invention to his master.[16]
Another instance of this sort was an invention on the plantation owned
by Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President of the late Confederate
States. The Montgomerys, father and sons, were attached to this
family, and some of them made mechanical appliances which were adopted
for use on the estate. One of them in particular, Benjamin T.
Montgomery, father of Isaiah T. Montgomery, founder of the prosperous
Negro Colony of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, invented a boat propeller.
It attracted the favorable attention of Jefferson Davis himself, who
unsuccessfully tried to have it patented. The writer is informed by a
recent letter from Isaiah T. Montgomery that it was Jefferson Davis's
failure in this matter that led him to recommend to the Confederate
Congress the law passed by that body favorable to the grant of patents
for the inventions of slaves. The law was:
"And be it further enacted, that in case the original inventor or
discoverer of the art, machine or improvement for which a patent
is solicited is a slave, the master of such slave may take an
oath that the said slave was the original; and on complying with
the requisites of the law shall receive a patent for said
discovery or invention, and have all the rights to which a
patentee is entitled by law."[17]
The national ban on patents for the inventions of slaves did not, of
course, attach itself to the inventions made by "free persons of
color" residing in this country. So that when James Forten, of
Philadelphia, who lived from 1766 to 1842, perfected a new device for
handling sails, he had no difficulty in obtaining a patent for his
invention, nor in deriving from it comfortable financial support for
himself and family during the remainder of his life.
This was also true in the case of Norbert Rillieux, a colored Creole
of Louisiana. In 1846 he invented and patented a vacuum pan which in
its day revolutionized to a large extent the then known method of
refining sugar. This invention with others which he also patented are
known to have aided very materially in developing the sugar industry
of Louisiana. Rillieux was a machinist and an engineer of fine
reputation in his native State, and displayed remarkable talent for
scientific work on a large scale. Among his other known achievements
was the development of a practicable scheme for a system of sewerage
for the city of New Orleans, but he here met his handicap of color
through the refusal of the authorities to accord to him such an honor
as would be evidenced by the acceptance and adoption of his plan.[18]
Who knows but that the city of New Orleans might have been able to
write a different chapter in the history of its health statistics on
the Yellow Fever peril if its prejudices had not been allowed to
dominate its prophecy?
[Illustration: _N. Rillieux_
_Evaporating Pan._
_No. 4,879_
_Patented Dec. 10, 1846_
_Sheet 3-4 Sheets_]
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 Emancipation
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 assumed the additional task of assorting 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 identity 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 title 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, Massachusetts. The hardships which he suffered gradually
undermined his health and before being able to realize the full value
of his invention, he passed 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
"Nigger machine," the relic, perhaps, of a possible contemptuous
reference to his racial identity; 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.
[Illustration: J. E. MATZELIGER