A FORGOTTEN LEGACY

The Scientific & Technological Contributions of African Americans Amid the Racial Climate of 18 th and 19th-Century Amerca

By Devon Cash
Considering the past history of race relations in America, examining the evils of racism, discrimination, and segregation is essential in better defining the experience of African Americans over the past four hundred years. Though most discussions of Black history revolve around the social, political, and economic inequalities between African Americans and their Caucasian counterparts, it is just as important to assess the scientific and technological contributions of African Americans, which have been virtually ignored in the discourse of American history. Because of this, the Black community, in spite of the many gifted scientists, researchers, and inventors it has produced, receives the brand of unintelligent and uninventive. The notion is that African Americans are not responsible for the creation or discovery of anything of importance to the greater society. Even in modern contexts, the stereotype of Black intellectual inferiority still runs rampant. For example, the 1962 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. James Watson, stated in a 2007 interview that social policies are guided by the misconception that their [African Americans] intelligence is the same as ours [Whites]when testing says not really.1 Unfortunately, this type of ignorance extends beyond the borders of America. Upon visiting London, for instance, a Ghanaian schoolteacher was incredulous upon hearing that African American, Garret Morgan, invented traffic lights. By his understanding, Black people simply, cannot or do notinvent things, they buy other peoples inventions.2 However, in this paper, the myth of the uncreative, uninventive African American will be deconstructed. In fact, the lack of Black representation in the world of science and technology is not the result of a lack of imagination or creative zeal, but is instead the result of a discriminatory patent process, a lack of esteem given to Black scholarship by the world of White academia, and the misattribution of African American innovation to White claimants. Instead of simply applauding the works of African American scientists, researchers, and inventors, this paper will describe the social context of their time as it relates to their struggle of achieving recognition in the 18th and 19th centuries. AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE PATENT PROCESS Some could contest the idea of a discriminatory patent process in America, considering the fact that free Blacks had the opportunity to patent their ideas. The earliest recorded Black patent holder was Thomas Jennings, who was accredited in 1821 for his invention of a dry cleaning process, which would later serve as the foundation for his successful business operations in New York City.3However, the fact that Jennings was free only goes to show that this unbiased patent process was not inclusive of the majority of African Americans; 86.5% of which were slaves in 18204, only a year before Jennings received his patent.

In regards to the slave population of the time, there are those who could argue that the patent system was objective due to its structure and voting procedures. The Patent Board, as defined by the 1790 Patent Act, consisted of three members of the Cabinet of the United States: the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney General. In issuing a patent, only two of the three Patent Board members had to come to the conclusion that the proposed invention was sufficiently useful and important. 5 Even though the very words of the 1790 Patent Act gave the Patent Board full and relative discretion over the patent process, the fact that they were given no instructions on how regularly to meet or how many patents to review in a given time could lead some people to believe that it was impossible for this fluid and flexible process to be systematically and innately discriminatory. Additionally, because the Act made no distinction between freemen and slaves, Black men and White, some could assert that Americas early patent system did not contain any social or racial bias. However, with the passage of the 1793 Patent Act, it becomes hard to deny the bias of Americas early patent process. The Act described a would-be patent holder as one, being a citizenof the United States.6 It can be assumed that political officials of the late 18th centuryincluding then, slave-owning President Thomas Jefferson7would agree with the Supreme Court some 65 years later in their ruling of Dred Scott vs. Sanford, stating that slaves were not, nor were they intended to be, citizens of the United States as defined by the Constitution.8 Despite this, because the 1793 Patent Act goes so far as to specify that a person who seeks a patent has to be a citizen of the United States, this Act manipulates the words of the Constitution, from which it is derived and can be challenged on the basis of constitutionality. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power, To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.9 The Constitution does not limit authors and inventors to being merely citizens of the United States. Understanding this, consider the three bases of determining constitutionality: strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, and rational basis. All three bases are standards by which federal courts can determine if a few, questionable laws can be enacted, so long as they are related to the progression of a government interest. 10 With this in mind, how can Congress redefine authors and inventors as citizens without a specific government interest to promote? They cannot. Though this process of judicial review was not established until 1803 in Marbury vs. Madison11, it is worthy to note that the 1836 Patent Act removed the citizenship clause, rather stating that The applicant shall also make oath or affirmationof what country he is a citizen. 12Perhaps legislators of the time realized the flaw of the previous Acts wording. Not only this, but consider the fact that education among slaves was highly stigmatized and was outlawed in several southern states. Slave masters of the time believed that reading and writing were tools to incite defiance and rebellion among the slave population. Following the Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831, many slave owners were frightened by the concept of slave unity, and Black literacy was one of the first constructs that White slave owners hoped to destroy through the adoption of Black codes. 13 With

this in mind, think about the difficulties of a slave in the Deep South, especially in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, as they attempted to maneuver the patent process. In spite of their creativity and imagination, would they be able to convey their ideas in words and drafts, figures and models? If they were literate, would they kindly ask Master to allow them to travel hundreds of miles to demonstrate their invention to the Attorney General of the United States? Probably not. In the same way that citizenship was not reserved for slaves as in the case of Scott vs. Sanford, authorship and inventorship were not reserved for slaves as in the case of the patent system in America. Still, there are some who would defend the patent system of the 18 th and 19th-century United States, claiming that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was not inherently discriminatory, but rather an institution, whose policies reflected the social climate of the time. However, regardless of the true intentions of the USPTO and the Department of Commerce, which now serves as its executive agency, the process of an African American receiving a patent in the 18th and 19th centuries was no small endeavor. Take, for instance, the $30 application fee for obtaining a patent under the 1793 Patent Act. To both Whites and Blacks, freemen and slaves, $30 was a steep cost for claiming ownership of an idea. This is especially true when, for example, in Virginia, the northernmost state in the South, farmers were paid a meager $6 per month in the 1830s 14, some forty years after the passage of the original 1790 Patent Act. If a free, White farmer could not afford the costs of patenting, then a Black slave surely could not. Ultimately, the early patent processincluding patent laws and the institutions that operated within in themwere not designed with the entirety of the African American community in mind. If anything, the patent process in the 18 th and 19th centuries stifled the hopes of Black scientists, researchers, and inventors as they fretted over the financial woes that could ensue as a result of expensive fees, as well as the fear of White aggression, especially for those in the South. Hence, the patent process was one of the main reasons that African Americans were disenfranchised in the fields of science and technology. ON THE FRINGE: BLACK SCHOLARSHIP In spite of the hurdles that African American scientists, researchers, and inventors would have had to overcome in order to acquire legal rights to their innovations and ideas, there were several who were able to accomplish impressive feats in science and technology and legitimize their names with a patent. However, these African American inventors and their impact on the greater society have, for the most part, gone unnoticed in public discourse. The question is: Why? Dr. Willie Pearson, Jr., professor in the School of History, Technology, and Society at Georgia Tech, says that White researchers, have not seen the value of doing this work.15 Black innovations not something heavily explored in modern classrooms. The fingers could be pointed at non-Black writers, who constitute a large portion of textbook authorsas in the case of the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA), which has

not a single African American on its board of council members.16 Blame could even be assigned to the thousands of school boards across the country, which design the curricula for their young students based on national, state, and local expectations. If we look at the standards of The College Board, for instance, a non-profit membership organization comprised of nearly 6,000 institutions of higher learning, there is no apparent emphasis on the scientific and technological innovations of African Americans in their course description of Advanced Placement United States History (AP US). Nearly a third of the course description aims to look at the evolving social, political, and economic conditions of antebellum and post-antebellum American society. There is no subsection dedicated to just scientific and technological contributions until the 24 th of 28 sections, entitled The 1950s.17 Even this particular subsection focuses on technological innovations in a general sense, from an American perspective, not a Black or White one. Though this colorblind approach to American innovation is, in a sense, noble, it clearly contradicts a few of the United States history teacher expectations set forth by the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS). According to these standards, a teacher is supposed to: Enable learners to develop historical understanding [of the] history of science and technology. Assist learners in acquiring knowledge ofthe many peoples who have contributed to the development of the continent of North America; Guide learners in practicing skills of historical analysis and interpretation, such as consider[ing] multiple perspectives18 This is not to say that The College Board is solely responsible for the exclusion of Black scientists, researchers, and inventors from the cannon of history textbooks (there are history books pertaining to Black inventorsA), but it is interesting to find African American contributions missing from the course description. This is especially interesting, considering that the very first section of The College Boards Advanced Placement World History (AP WH) course description is Theme 1: Interactions Between Humans and the Environment, which features technology as one of its four major topics, along with demographics and disease, migration, and patterns of settlement.19 Simply put, modern education has not regarded Black scholarship, especially in the world of science and technology, as a topic worth much attention. In addition to a not so well rounded curriculum, several institutions of higher learning have also marginalized the scholastic endeavors of African American researchers as merely Black studies. In his autobiography, Mirror to America, historian John Hope Franklin, who earned his doctorate from Harvard, wrote, African Americans scholars have repeatedly been cast or pushed into the field of Black studies when they were not inclined to go that route.20
A

See Ava Henry, Black Scientists and Inventors Book One (1999)

The common idea was that African Americans could contribute only to the study of their culture, history, and role in society. However, African Americans were not expected to add any new dimension to the fields of science and technology. This relates to the aforementioned problem of the patent process. Because African

American scientists, researchers, and inventors were disenfranchised, they were highly underrepresented in prestigious journals, at professional conferences, and in other scholarly arenas. As a result, many White Americans of the time viewed the few, notable Black inventors of the time as exceptions, when in fact, these inventors were not anomalies. They came out of a tradition, according to Dr. Spencer Crew, director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.21 Crew essentially conveys the idea that many people are ignorant of Black accomplishment and innovation. This seems especially true, considering the fact that by 1990 it had taken 17 years for the National Inventors Hall of Fame to induct George Washington Carver 22, an African American who thought of over 300 uses of a peanut.23 Also included in this struggle for recognition were Black female inventors. Beatrice Kenner, holder of five patents, was heavily discriminated against because of her race and gender. She was seen as arrogant for attempting to establish herself in the White mans world of science. For women like Kenner, obtaining recognition did not come without its hardships.24 However, there is another strain of thought, which regards Black scholarship in another light. Milton Gordon, an American sociologist, was a part of a trend in the field of sociology in the mid-1960s. He and his cohorts sought to understand the intellectual community, which was considered a subsociety within the greater social structure and was comprised of people of various racial, cultural, and social origins, who were separated from everyone else due to their more extensive insight regarding certain fields of knowledge. To Gordon, intellectuals perceived concepts and ideas as though they had an intrinsic meaning, independent of basic understandings and constructs.25 Gordon also asserted that true intellectuals, wear their ethnicity lightly,26 and are effectively colorblind. With this, many African American leaders from WEB DuBois to Malcolm X to Stokley Carmichaelwould not be deemed intellectuals at all. Since they were conscious of color, they were assumed to be unconscious of everything else. Again, the fact of the matter is that Black scholarship is on the fringe of American society, often considered irrelevant or inessential. From the textbooks and curricula, where Black innovation is mentioned in a paragraph or two, to the marginalization of African American researchers in higher institutions of learning, and to the notion that Black scholars are too ethnocentric, it is clear that African American scholarship is isolated from the great majority of Americans, teachers and students alike. This misunderstanding of Black scholarship has kept Black scientists, researchers, and inventors from achieving recognition in their respective fields. BLACK INVENTIONS, WHITE INVENTORS A very clear reason as to why African American scientists, researchers, and inventors remain unsung is because they were intended to be hidden from society. The contributions of African Americans, especially slaves in the antebellum South, were seen as the results of a good slave master, who reared his slaves in the ideas of hard work and

industriousness. In effect, inventions and discoveries made by slaves were actually that of the slave masters. The fact of the matter is that Black inventions revolved around the fact that masters often took credit for slave inventions and little, if any, recognition ever went to slaves.27 Many raise the question: how could a relatively uneducated sector of the community really contribute to the complex subjects of science and technology? Remember, African American slaves had been in America for nearly two hundred years by the start of the 19th century. In this time, farming techniques, as with the case of cooking techniques (e.g., soul food), were improved and developed as Black slaves learned to adopt certain methods and utilize tools in certain ways to make their responsibilities simpler and their lives easier. It was quite easy for slaves to make minor adjustments to simple tools to create newer and better technologies. However, this misattribution of Black inventions to White inventors does not simply describe the relationship between Black slaves and White masters, it also is appropriate in describing several relationships between free Blacks and free Whites. Take the case of Granville T. Woods, a prominent African American inventor, who was deemed one of the greatest inventors of any race. Promising, yet in financial hardships, Woods sought the assistance of a pair of investors, Zerbe and Bowen. The two eventually schemed Woods into a contract, essentially making him a complete non-factor in the patenting of his inventions. While Zerbe and Bowen made thousands of dollars by selling several of Woods inventions relating to electric railways, Woods ended up struggling to make ends meet.28 Another example is Norbert Rillieux, a Louisiana native, whobecause his mother was one-fourth Blackwas deemed a colored man. His invention of a steam powered vacuum process dramatically changed the pace at which sugarcane was refined. The popularity of sugarcane as a cash crop made many inventors envious of Rillieuxs knowledge. While studying in France,Rillieuxs invention was copied. However, because his process was not created for the sugar beets of France, it failed miserably. Criticsthe same ones who claimed ownership of the invention assaulted Rillieuxs work, claiming that helike other Black inventorswere ignorant of science and technology. Rillieuxs credibility was not fully reestablished until he reached his 70s, after finally creating a refining system for Frances sugar beets.29 All in all, many Blacksboth slave and freehave lost out on obtaining proper legal ownership of their inventions. As a result, modern society remains clueless about the fate and struggle of several unknown African American inventors, as in the case of Granville T. Woods. Through either the tricks of their masters or the schemes of their White colleagues, African American scientists, researchers, and inventors were successfully stripped of their intellectual properties. CONCLUSION Again, do not believe the hype! Older names, like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham

Bell, and Benjamin Franklin, and newer names like Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Zuckerberg are the most archetypical examples of American innovators. However, there are multitudes of African Americans, including the well-known George Washington Carver and the scarcely recognized Granville T. Woods, who have changed the way we think about agriculture and telegraphy. However, these names and faces are blurred by time and ignorance. African American scientists, researchers, and inventors have contributed a wealth of knowledge to American society, but have gone unrecognized. They exemplify the opposite of the unintelligent stereotype that African Americans were and are branded with by working and maneuvering their way through a society divided by lines of color and ethnicity. Their contributions are that of a forgotten legacy of African Americans who contributed to the world of science and technology. Though their due diligence has been delayed as the result of a discriminatory patent process, a lack of esteem given to them as scholars, and the misattribution of their ideas to Whites, African Americans and their works in the scientific and technological fields will be carried on in this paper and the ones that are sure to follow. ENDNOTES 1. Stephen Adams, Nobel Scientist Snubbed After Racism Claims, The Telegraph, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1566468/Nobel-scientist-snubbed-afterracism-claims.html> (Oct. 17, 2007). 2. Black Inventions, New African (April 2000): 20-25. 3. Black Inventors, Ebony, February 1990, 128-131 (www.ebschohost.com). 4. Slave and Free Black Population Distribution in the United States, AfricanAmerican History Online (www.fofweb.com). 5. U.S. Congress, Patent Act of 1790. 1st Cong., 2nd sess. 6. U.S. Congress, Patent Act of 1793. 2nd Cong., 2nd sess. 7. Thomas Jeffersons Poplar Forest, Jeffersons Views on Slavery, <www.poplarforest.org/jefferson/plantation-life/jeffersons-views>. 8. Tim McNeese, The Decision, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Great Supreme Court Decisions (New York: Chelsea), 2007 (www.fofweb.com). 9. The Constitution of the United States, Article 1, Section 8. 10. Nolos Plain-English Law Dictionary, Strict Scrutiny, <http://www.nolo.com/dictionary/strict-scrutiny-term.html>. 11. Marbury v. Madison, Case Briefs, < http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyedto-cohen/judicial-review/marbury-v-madison-2/>. 12. U.S. Congress, Patent Act of 1836. 24th Cong., 1st

13. Jennifer Peltak, The Origins of African-American Education, Colleges and Universities, African American Contributions (New York: Chelsea), 2007 (www.fofweb.com).
14. Stanley Lebergott, Wage Trends, 1800-1900, Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, National Bureau of Economic Research Internet Archive,<www.nber.org/chapters/c2486.pdf>. (This selection is now out-of-print; original source published in 1960). 15. Ronald Roach, Black Innovation, Black Issues in Higher Education 19 (2002): 28-

30 (www.fofweb.com). 16. Text and Academic Authors Association, TAA Council, <www.taaonline.net/TAACouncil/index.html>. 17. The College Board, United States History Course Description, <apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap-us-history-coursedescription.pdf>. 18. Grant Kessler and Jennifer Judson, Lesson Plan African American Scientists and Inventors, Black History Bulletin 70, 2007 (www.ebscohost.com). 19. The College Board, AP World History Course Description, <apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/AP_WorldHistoryCED_Effective _Fall_2011.pdf>. 20. John Hope Franklin, Mirror to America (New York: FSG), 327. 21. Roach, Black Innovation. 22. Edmund L. Andrews, Patents; Hall of Fames Names Two Black Inventors, The New York Times, <http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/27/business/patents-hall-offame-names-two-Black-inventors.html> (Jan. 27, 1990). 23. Black Inventors, New Crisis 106 (1999): 64-64 (www.ebscohost.com). 24. Black Inventors, Ebony. 25. William M. Banks and Joseph Jewel, Intellectuals and the Persisting Significance of Race, Journal of Negro Education 64 (Winter 1995): 75-87 (www.ebscohost.com). 26. Banks and Jewel, Intellectuals and the Persisting Significance of Race. 27. Roach, Black Innovation. 28. Rayvon Fouch, The Exploitation of An African-American Inventor on the Fringe: Granville T. Woods and the Process of Invention, The Western Journal of Black Studies 21 (1997): 190-98 (www.ebscohost.com). 29. Three Important Black Inventors, Blacfax 30 (Winter 1993): 27-29 (www.ebscohost.com).