Honoring The Brilliance Of Black Inventors
Throughout the month February, the Chicago Citizen will continue to celebrate Black History Monthby featuring the ingenuity of African American inventors and their significant contributions to society.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson is hailed as the father of Black History Month. Woodson was born to former slaves on Dec. 19, 1875 in Virginia. He was extremely well educated, receiving a masters degree from the University of Chicago and PH.D in history from Harvard University.
Woodson, an educator, co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) along with Jesse Moorland in 1915. The organization sought to raise awareness about the significance of Black history. Woodson also published the scholarly periodical, the Journal of Negro History, a year after he founded the ASNLH. In addition, as a journalist and author, Woodson wrote several erudite works including, The History of the Negro Church, (1922) and The Education of the Negro, (1933).
Woodson once said, If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.
In 1926, Woodson and the ASNLH established Negro History Week which was eventually extended to an entire month.
Woodson died in 1950 and a Chicago Public Library bears his name on the citys South Side.
Ever heard of the saying, the Real McCoy? Well, Elijah McCoy is at the root of that expression. McCoy was born in 1843 in Ontario, Canada. His parents were former slaves from Kentucky who escaped via the Underground Railroad.
As a child, McCoy demonstrated an interested in mechanics. His parents sent him to school in Scotland to study mechanical engineering. After finishing school, he moved to Michigan and worked as an oilman for the Michigan Central Railroad. McCoy was charged with making sure trains were well lubricated. After a few miles of travel, the train had to stop and McCoy applied oil to its axles and bearings.
To streamline the process of lubricating the train, McCoy created a method to automate the task. In 1872, he designed a lubricating cup that automatically drips oil onto the trains axles and bearings. The ingenious device was patented a year later.
Orders for the cup came from railroad companies from all across the country. Imitation cups were produced but many companies only wanted McCoys device, hence the term the Real McCoy.
McCoy died in 1929.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams is a prominent pioneer in the medical profession. He founded Provident Hospital in Chicago and conducted the first open heart surgery. Born in 1856 in Pennsylvania, Williams attended what is now Northwestern Universitys medical school and graduated in 1883. Soon afterwards, he opened his own practice.
In 1893, Williams conducted the first open heart surgery on James Cornish. Cornish was suffering from a knife injury to the chest after a bar fight and was fighting for his life once he arrived at Provident Hospital. Williams made the decision to open the mans chest and to operate on his wounds. At the time, operating internally was virtually unheard of because of the risk of infection but Williams proceeded to perform the operation which proved to be very successful. Cornish lived another 50 years after the procedure.
Williams died in 1931.
Jan Ernst Matzeliger is a Black inventor who revolutionized the shoe industry. Born September 15, 1852 to a Dutch engineer and Black Surinamese slave, Matzeliger developed an interest in mechanics as a child. When he got older, Matzeliger worked as an apprentice in a shoe factory and operated a machine which was used to fasten together the different parts of a shoe. At the time, no machines were in existence that could attach the upper part of a shoe to the sole. Technicians who were able to sew the parts of a shoe together were called "hand lasters" and experienced hand lasters yielded about 50 pairs of shoes in a 10 hour work day. Hand lasters were able to charge handsomely because of their craftsmanship.
Matzeliger studied hand lasters and developed a device to automate the process. In March 1883, the United States Patent Office issued a patent to Matzeliger for his "Lasting Machine." Within two years, Matzeliger had had made several enhancement to the apparatus and it could produce nearly 700 pairs of shoes daily. Matzeligers ingenuity restructured the shoe manufacturing process. As a result, shoes became more affordable.
Matzeliger died at 37 of tuberculosis.
Sources: africanamericanhistorymonth.gov, blackinventor.comby Thelma Sardin
Twitter:@thelmasardin
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