Technology is constantly evolving. The ongoing revolution is particularly visible in the integration of robotics, artificial intelligence, automation, and more. This field has created many opportunities for humans and has improved the way in which we live, communicate, and do business.
While it is easy to get distracted by the highlights of the latest iPhone or the invention of Tesla cars, one must never forget the first pioneers who stood behind the wheels of this innovation. While the media is inundated with a lot of White inventors who have made significant strides in this area, Black inventors are often overlooked and their work undermined or sometimes patented under a White name!
The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the world’s greatest Black inventors who have made significant contributions to society and helped change the world. For this article, inventors will be categorized as past or recent inventors. The unveiling of these truths will educate and clarify the minds of others on this particular subject in the highest spirits of Black History Month.
Past Inventors
Granville T. Woods
Granville T. Woods is regarded as the “Black Thomas Edison’ of inventors. He was born on April 23, 1856, in Columbus, Ohio. Despite receiving very little formal education, from a very early age, Woods took s keen interest in the art of mechanics. As a teenager, he worked several jobs including as an engineer on a British ship and in a steel mill. He also worked as a railroad engineer in the railroad machine shop and as a railroad worker. In the summer of 1878, he worked in the Springfield, Jackson and Pomeroy Railroad Company at a pumping station and shifted cars at the Washington Court House in Ohio. All his life, he involved in the operations of mechanics.
Key highlights of his career:
Due to his lack of financial resources and opportunities, Granville left school when he was ten years old. The foundation of his knowledge was self-taught and from what he garnered working on the job. This fact is more noteworthy considering he was the first mechanical and electrical engineer in the United States of America after the Civil War.
He held more than 60 patents in the US. His focus and work was primarily on the mechanics and operations of trains and streetcars
Woods invented a system for the overhead electric conducting lines on railroads in 1988. This development aided the sustaining of railroad systems found in St. Louise, Chicago, and New York. In 1987 he patented the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph which essentially facilitated the free flow of communication between train stations from trains on the tracks.
Garret Augustus Morgan
Garret Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky on March 4, 1877. He was the seventh born of eleven children for his parents. His mother was of mixed descent as she was Indian and Black while his father was a formerly enslaved man who got his freedom in 1863. Morgan only completed primary levels of education, but he was able to pay for private lessons from a tutor. This was after he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, looking for work and started working as a handyman.
After leaving the wealthy estate he worked at several sewing machine factories. Morgan got to know the mechanic of these small appliances inside out which enabled him to improve them. He patented his work for an improved sewing machine shortly after and started his own repair business, which became a success.
Key highlights of his career
Morgan paved the way to financial freedom by the design and success of his own sewing machine repair company
In 1914 Morgan patented a breathing device that allowed the circulation of ‘safer air’ in the presence of smoke or gas. This became the archetype for the gas mask used during the World War to protect soldiers in the infantry from toxic and poisonous exhausts from explosives
Marie Van Brittan Brown
Another brilliant Black inventor is Marie Van Brown. She was born on October 30, 1922, and hailed from Jamaica, Queens in New York, She developed the first-ever home security system which was the prototype for modern systems used in contemporary society. This closed-circuit television invention was inspired by the circumstances of Brown’s life. As a nurse, she was required to work long shifts which resulted in her returning home late at night. Her husband too worked irregular shifts so she was often home alone with their children. Given the high-crime nature of the neighborhood, she lived in fear and felt vulnerable to the possible villainous forces.
Key highlights of her career
With the assistance of her husband, Brown created a home security system that included four peepholes, a sliding camera, television monitors, and two-way microphones. In 1967 this invention was granted a U.S. patent and was recognized in the New York Times. She also received an award from the National Scientists Committee.
Etta Zuber Falconer
“My entire career has been devoted to increasing the number of African American women in mathematics and mathematics-related careers.” — Etta Falconer, 1995.
Etta Falconer was born on November 21, 1933, in Tupelo, Mississippi. She is the second of two children of Dr. Walter A. Zuber and Mrs. Zadie L. Montgomery Zuber. Her entire life was committed to learning and building on what she already knew. She attended George Washinton High School in 1949 prior to her matriculation to the Fisk University where she graduated summa cum laude with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Chemistry. Immediately after her college graduation, she attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she enrolled in an MS Mathematics program. She taught temporarily at the junior college and college levels then moved on to Emory University where she received her Ph.D.
Key highlights of her career
Though she was not an inventor, her dedication to increasing the number of black women in mathematics and mathematics-related field led to the creation of many inventions
In 1982 she was the first black woman to receive a Master’s Degree in Computer Science
For her hard work and dedication, Falconer received many accolades: these include NSF Faculty Fellow (1967-1969), Spelman Presidential Award for Excellence in Service (1904), UNCF Distinguished Faculty Award (1986-1987), NAM Distinguished Service (1994) and others.
Miriam E. Benjamin
She was born on September 16, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina. She was the eldest of five children born to parents Eliza Hopkins Benjamin and Francis Benjamin. In the 1870s Miriam’s mother moved the family to Boston Massachusetts for the chance of a better life. There she attended high school before moving to Washington, D.C.During this time she worked as a teacher and a civil service clerk.
Key highlights of her career
Benjamin is known for her outstanding work as an inventor who created the gong and signal chair. This allowed individuals to alert an attendant when they needed assistance. Her brilliant invention became a precursor for the signaling systems used on airplanes.
Contemporary Inventors
James West
James West was born on February 10, 1931, in Prince Edward County, Virginia. As a child, West was fascinated by the mechanics of appliances and often spent his time taking them apart. After a fortunate incident with a radio, he was playing with, he became intrigued with the concept of electricity and how it world. His deepest desire was to pursue science academically. Prior to his recruitment for Bell Labs, he attended Temple University to study physics and work as an intern. In 1957 he received his bachelor’s in physics and hired full-time as an acoustic scientist by Bell.
Key highlights of his career
He developed the electret transducer technology used in 90% of microphones.
Being the eloquent writer that he is, West became a professor at the John Hopkins University in the faculty of Science and Technology
Mark Dean
Mark Dean was born on March 2, 1957, in Jefferson City, Tennessee. As a boy, he held a genuine love for building things from scratch. With the help of his father, a supervisor in Tennessee, he built a tractor from scratch. This love did not wane as he pursued a degree in engineering in 1979 and graduated at the top of his class, as he did during his high school years at the Tennessee High School.
Key highlights of his career
After university, Dean got a job at IBM. Here, he developed an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) systems bus, which allowed the connection of periphery devices to computers
Following his lead on the improvement of computer accessibility, Dean developed the color PC monitor and in 1999 developed the first gigahertz chip along with a team from IBM. This device allows billions of calculations to be run by a system in a matter of seconds.
Shawn McLean and Dwayne Samuels
Shawn McLean and Dwayne Samuels are Jamaican born inventors who formerly attended the Northern Caribbean University (NCU). In 2009 and 2010 they entered the Imagine Cup Software Design Competition. They were placed third and first respectively. Through their experience with this, they developed a software called Grik.ly. Essentially, this is a business mobile networking application created by Xormis, which allows the sharing of business cards via smartphones. The application includes a profile and a ledger with all listed contacts which updates changes and shows how the data was used. It is the first official application made in Jamaica that the Windows 8 App store has approved.