The Colored Inventor | Page 3

the one
class continually holds up before its eyes an imaginary boundary line in
all things mental, beyond which it seems unwilling to admit that it is
possible for the other class to go.
Under this condition of the general class thought in our country it has

become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined
power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought,
that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the
beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to
the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no place for
himself in the ranks of those who have made this nation the foremost
nation of the world in the number and character of its inventions.
That this conclusion with reference to the colored man's inventive
faculty is wholly untrue I will endeavor now to show.
In the world of invention the colored man has pursued the same line of
activity that other men have followed; he has been spurred by the same
necessity that has confronted other men, namely, the need for some
device by which to minimize the exactions of his daily toil, to save his
time, conserve his strength and multiply the results of his labor. Like
other men, the colored man sought first to invent the thing that was
related to his earlier occupations, and as his industrial pursuits became
more varied his inventive genius widened correspondingly. Thus we
find that the first recorded instances of patents having been granted to a
colored man--and the only ones specifically so designated--are the two
patents on corn harvesters which were granted in 1834 and 1836 to one
Henry Blair, of Maryland, presumably a "free person of color," as the
law was so construed at that time as to bar the issuance of a patent to a
slave.
With the exception of these two instances the public records of the
Patent Office give absolutely no hint as to whether any one of the more
than 1,000,000 patents granted by this government to meritorious
inventors from all parts of the world has been granted to a colored
inventor. The records make clear enough distinctions as to nationality,
but absolutely none as to race. This policy of having the public records
distinguish between inventors of different nationalities only is a distinct
disadvantage to the colored race in this country.
If the inventors of England or France or Germany or Italy, or any other
country, desire to ascertain the number and character of the inventions
patented to the citizens of their respective countries, it would require

but a few hours of work to get exact statistics on the subject, but not so
with the colored inventor. Here, as elsewhere, he has a hard road to
travel.
In fact, it seems absolutely impossible to get even an approximately
correct answer to that question for our race. Whatever of statistics one
is able to get on this subject must be obtained almost wholly in a
haphazard sort of way from persons not employed in the Patent Office,
and who must, in the great majority of cases, rely on their memory to
some extent for the facts they give. Under such circumstances as these
it is easy to see the large amount of labor involved in getting up such
statistics as may be relied upon as being true.
There have been two systematic efforts made by the Patent Office itself
to get this information, one of them being in operation at the present
time. The effort is made through a circular letter addressed to the
thousands of patent attorneys throughout the country, who come in
contact often with inventors as their clients, to popular and influential
newspapers, to conspicuous citizens of both races, and to the owners of
large manufacturing industries where skilled mechanics of both races
are employed, all of whom are asked to report what they happen to
know on the subject under inquiry.
The answers to this inquiry cover a wide range of guesswork, many
mere rumors and a large number of definite facts. These are all put
through the test of comparison with the official records of the Patent
Office, and this sifting process has evolved such facts as form the basis
of the showing presented here.
There is just one other source of information which, though its yield of
facts is small, yet makes up in reliability what it lacks in numerousness;
and that is where the inventor himself comes to the Patent Office to
look after his invention. This does not often happen, but it rarely leaves
anything to the imagination when it does happen.
Sometimes it has been difficult to get this information by
correspondence even from colored inventors themselves. Many of them
refuse