The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years
Baker Henry E.
English
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The Colored Inventor
A RECORD OF FIFTY YEARS
By HENRY E. BAKER. Assistant Examiner United States Patent Office
[Illustration: HENRY E. BAKER.]
The year 1913 marks the close of the first fifty years since Abraham
Lincoln issued that famous edict known as the emancipation proclamation,
by which physical freedom was vouchsafed to the slaves and the
descendants of slaves in this country. And it would seem entirely fit
and proper that those who were either directly or indirectly benefited
by that proclamation should pause long enough at this period in their
national life to review the past, recount the progress made, and see, if
possible, what of the future is disclosed in the past.
That the colored people in the United States have made substantial
progress in the general spread of intelligence among them, and in
elevating the tone of their moral life; in the acquisition of property;
in the development and support of business enterprises, and in the
professional activities, is a matter of quite common assent by those who
have been at all observant on the subject. This fact is amply shown to
be true by the many universities, colleges and schools organized,
supported and manned by the race, by their attractive homes and cultured
home life, found now in all parts of our country; by the increasing
numbers of those of the race who are successfully engaging in
professional life, and by the gradual advance the race is making toward
business efficiency in many varied lines of business activity.
It is not so apparent, however, to the general public that along the
line of inventions also the colored race has made surprising and
substantial progress; and that it has followed, even if "afar off," the
footsteps of the more favored race. And it is highly important,
therefore, that we should make note of what the race has achieved along
this line to the end that proper credit may be accorded it as having
made some contribution to our national progress.
Standing foremost in the list of things that have actually done most to
promote our national progress in all material ways is the item of
inventions. Without inventions we should have had no agricultural
implements with which to till the fertile fields of our vast continent;
no mining machinery for recovering the rich treasure that for centuries
lay hidden beneath our surface; no steamcar or steamboat for
transporting the products of field and mine; no machinery for converting
those products into other forms of commercial needs; no telegraph or
telephone for the speedy transmission of messages, no means for
discovering and controlling the various utilitarian applications of
electricity; no one of those delicate instruments which enable the
skilful surgeon of to-day to transform and renew the human body, and
often to make life itself stand erect, as it were, in the very presence
of death. Without inventions we could have none of those numerous
instruments which to-day in the hands of the scientist enable him
accurately to forecast the weather, to anticipate and provide against
storms on land and at sea, to detect seismic disturbances and warn
against the dangers incident to their repetition; and no wireless
telegraphy with its manifold blessings to humanity.
All these great achievements have come to us from the hand of the
inventor. He it is who has enabled us to inhabit the air above us, to
tunnel the earth beneath, explore the mysteries of the sea, and in a
thousand ways, unknown to our forefathers, multiply human comforts and
minimize human misery. Indeed, it is difficult to recall a single
feature of our national progress along material lines that has not been
vitalized by the touch of the inventor's genius.
Into this vast yet specific field of scientific industry the colored man
has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to
his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding
industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others
in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new
things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt
them to new uses. We know that the colored man has accomplished
something--indeed, a very great deal--in the field of invention, but it
would be of the first importance to us now to know exactly what he has
done, and the commercial value of his productions. Unfortunately for us,
however, this can never be known in all its completeness.
A very recent experiment in the matter of collecting information on this
subject has disclosed some remarkably striking facts, not the least
interesting of which is the very widespread belief among those who ought
to know better that the colored man has done absolutely nothing of value
in the line of invention. This is but a reflex of the opinions variously
expressed by others at different times on the subject of the capacity of
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