The Colored Inventor

The Colored Inventor, by Henry
E. Baker

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Title: The Colored Inventor A Record of Fifty Years
Author: Henry E. Baker
Release Date: May 3, 2007 [EBook #21281]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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COLORED INVENTOR ***

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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