Industry Update

Henry Baker, the only black man to work in the patents office in Washington, D.C., examines how far black inventors and inventions have come and proves that “ it is a mistake to assume that the Negro is an imitator and not an originator.”

Washington, D.C., Sept. 10 - Henry E. Baker, the only colored man who is an assistant examiner of patents in the patent office, has prepared some interesting figures showing the development of the American Negro as an invention. These figures the accumulation of which Baker began years ago, have been difficult to get, for the reason that the patent office keeps no record of the color of a man who applies for an is granted a patent. Through the personal correspondence of Baker with patent attorneys and others, and through a circular letter sent out to the same class of people by the patent office some years ago, most of the information has been acquired. Since the United States patent office was established in 1790, something like 900,000 patents have been granted on various devices, the bulk of which have never had extensive use or even use at all. Out of this number Baker is positive that at least 1,000 of the patents have been to Negroes. It is a singular fact that until after the close of the Civil War, and the granting of freedom to the Negro, the United States government refused to issue patents to Negroes. The inventive progress of the Negro therefore dates back only 40 years. Baker says it is a mistake to assume that the Negro is an imitator and not an originator, declaring that after all, there is precious little originating among nearly all patents granted, one being merely an improvement over the idea of some other man. “It was a Cuban Negro named J. N. Matzeliger, who made the basic patent for sewing soles on shoes,” said Baker, “and if he had been up to snuff he would have been worth millions when he died, that machinery today bringing thousands in the way of royalty. Matzeliger was a boot and shoe cobbler in Lynn, Mass. He organized a company to put the machine out of a majority of the stock. At the time of this death, however, he still held some of the shares, which he thought would never be of value. He willed these to a Baptist Church in Lynn. Many years later the church became badly mortgaged, and when the officers were hunting a way out of the indebtedness they pulled out this old stock. It brought them $15,000 more than enough to lift the mortgage.” The most noted Negro inventor of the country is Granville T. Woods, an electrician, of New York. he has patented forty or more devices, all relating to the control of electricity. One of these he sold to the Bell Telephone Company for $10,000. He and his brother have a company in New York for handling electrical machinery, much of it their own invention. Next to Woods as a prolific inventor is Elijah McCoy, of Detroit. His devices are nearly all related to the lubricating of machinery. They have been used for year on steamships, railroads etc., and have brought him a fortune. Humphrey Reynolds invented the main part of the ventilating machinery for Pullman cars. He was a porter on these cars at the time. The company got the patent before he did, however. He quit the concern, entered suit against it, proving the patent to be his own, and obtained judgement for $25,000. A half dozen Negro women have invented useful articles. M.E. Benjamin, a colored school teacher, of this city, invented a gong signal for use in school and a pinking machine for sewing braid on cloth without the thread showing outside. She was a dressmaker. A Florida woman invented a bed for invalids, and refused an offer of $5,000 for it.
W.W. Price

“Industry Update,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed February 19, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/718.