In 1886, The Statue of Liberty was a symbol of democratic government and Enlightenment standards as a celebration of the Union's triumph in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Eduardo de Laboulaye, the French political mastermind, U.S. Constitution...

Leonard Bailey was an African American innovator and businessman in Washington, DC, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was born in 1825 with a physical inability to an impoverished free black family. However, through his business adventures and ambitious...

Ellen Eglin was an African American woman who invented the mechanical clothes wringer. Back then, people did not have a lot of options to wash clothes. The device had two rollers constructed in a frame and these were connected to a crank. These rollers had two wooden...

Charles Baker was an African American inventor born in Savannah, Missouri on August 3, 1859. His parents were Abraham Baker and Betsy Mackay Baker. Sadly, his mother died before Baker’s first birthday, so he was brought up by his father and the wife of the plantation...

Hair plays a significant role in America's Black community and beyond just fashion and the huge industry that it is, hair is an important cultural and symbolic subject surrounded by fascinating History. Trends come and go and the community is always on the forefront...

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, a black inventor, was born in Monroe, North Carolina in 1912. She started inventing while still in her childhood, and she holds more patents than any other African American woman in history. Schooling Mary Kenner went to Dunbar High...

Lewis Temple, a black inventor, impacted the whaling industry with his whaling harpoon invention in the 19th century. He was an accomplished blacksmith, and in 1836 he became one of 315,000 African American freedmen in the United States. Temple thrived in business,...

Bessie Blount Griffin is best remembered for her 1951 invention of an electronic device that helped amputees feed themselves. The device was meant to assist solders injured fighting in World War II (WWII) from 1939 to 1945. WWII involved the alignment of the major...

Miriam Benjamin was an African American schoolteacher and inventor born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1861. Her parents were Francis Benjamin (a Jewish man) and Eliza Benjamin (an African American woman); she was also the eldest of six siblings. Her siblings were,...

Joseph Winters was an inventor who advanced the fire escape ladder that would years later help save countless lives. He created foldable or collapsible ladders that enabled fire trucks to maneuver into corners in narrow alleys and streets. He received a patent for the...

Lloyd Augustus Hall was an African American chemist and inventor, who contributed to the science of food preservation. He created an innovative method of preserving meat known as “flash drying”. Hall was born in 1894 in Elgin, Illinois and was raised in the Christian...

Marjorie Joyner was an African American born in 1896. She hailed from Monterey, Virginia where her parents, George Stewart and Annie Stewart, lived before moving to Dayton, Ohio, soon afterward. However, her parents divorced later, and this resulted in the frequent...

Patricia E. Bath, ophthalmologist, laser and creative research scientist, and supporter of visual deficiency counteractive action, treatment, and cure. Her achievements incorporate the innovation of a new gadget and procedure for cataract surgery procedure known as...

Alexander Miles was born in 1838 in Duluth, Minnesota. He moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin where he earned a living as a barber in the 1860s. Later he moved to Winona, Minnesota in 1870, where he met his wife, Candace J. Dunlap, a white woman born in New York City in...

Personal and Social Life Granville Woods, a prolific African American inventor, was born on April 23, 1856, in Columbia, Ohio. His parents, Tailer and Martha Woods, were free African Americans. His brother Lyates Woods also had various inventions. Granville Woods was...

Jan Ernst Matzeliger invented a shoe lasting machine that made footwear more affordable in the 19th century. Matzeliger’s lasting machine increased the speed of the mechanized shoe making process and created more employment opportunities especially for minorities. buy...