African American Inventors

2/10/04 | Arpege92

[Teacher317]

What a shame that 90% of blacks would know either one (Carver) or none.

[mhking]

What a shame that 90% of blacks would know either one (Carver) or none.

Not true. They wouldn't know them all, but to say that they'd only know one is a misnomer.

[50sDad]

Bravo! You are to be commended for educating your kids. My two daughters are never out of school...I am always giving them facts, history and science. I will pass the list on to them.

[Oztrich Boy]

I notice that: all lived and died before the Civil Rights Movement.

[DeepDish]

"FREDERICK MCKINLEY JONES (1893-1961) This World War I veteran is most remembered for introducing the first practical refrigeration system for trucks and railroad cars, a system that completely changed the food transport industry. Jones was responsible for a phenomenal 60 patents during his lifetime, 40 for refrigeration equipment alone."

A guy like this is worth 5 Nobel Prize winners in medicine. why? Because his inventions provide the basis of the veggie aisle in every grocery store in the US. This improves the health of the population and a healthier population is more disease resistant.

[CSM]

Thank you. I have been trying to find programming about such things, but I am surprised that it is hard to find in Feb.

[cyborg]

It's too bad there aren't prizes for inventions that improve the condition of humanity. I'd like to win the nobel prize in literature or science, but they can keep the peace prize!

[CSM]

Who invented the golf tee?

[cyborg]

http://african-american-inventors.com/african-american-inventors/african-american-inventors-woman-famous-scientists-black-pictures-female-biography-inventions-9.shtml

[cyborg]

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgolfteehtm.htm

Here's a better link

[SoCal Pubbie]

The sad part about this, IMHO, is we don't need Black History Month, we just need American History month. From Crispus Attucks and The First Rhode Island Regiment, to Fredrick Douglas and The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, to all the inventors listed here and more, it's all there- American History.

[cyborg]

THANK YOU!!!! Thank you you read my mind... I went to a little catholic school that didn't have black history month. We learned everything together in school.

[DeepDish]

I am sure there are, but they do not get the press that the Nobel does. The peace prize is an internal Swedish Socialism prize and has nothing in common with the other awards other than the name.

[CSM]

Thanks. That was interesting. I have sent it to all my golf pals!

[Labyrinthos]

One of the things that I find interesting is the number of these inventors who lived into their 70's and 80's at a time when the average life expectancy was significantly less. They were obviously doing a lot of things right in addition to the productive use of their brain cells.

[wjcsux]

Thanks for this list. The Race Hustlers are really hurting all of us when they claim minorities cannot make it "without them". It brings me such heartfelt sadness because these hustlers are robbing minority children of their future.

I would like to see a list of black military heroes. COL Benjamin O. Davis, commander of the 332nd Fighter Group (WWII) is my favorite.

[per loin]

ELIJAH MCCOY (1844-1929) This American inventor is best known for inventing ingenious devices to lubricate heavy machiner automatically. His devices were so reliable that people often asked if machinery contained "the real McCoy," likely giving rise to this enduring expression.

[Q] From Ana Elisa Leiderman:Could you please tell me how the expression the real McCoy originated?

[A] I wish I could. There are at least half a dozen theories about which of the myriad McCoys of America at the end of the nineteenth century is the genuinely real McCoy. Was it, as Alistair Cooke argued, a famous cattle baron? Or was it perhaps Elijah McCoy, who invented a machine to lubricate the moving parts of a railway locomotive? The broad consensus seems to be that it was Kid McCoy, the former welterweight boxing champion of the 1890s. He had so many imitators, taking his name in boxing booths in small towns throughout the country, that it seems he had eventually to bill himself as Kid "The Real McCoy", and the phrase stuck. Now let me enter a caveat: The Oxford English Dictionary records this from a letter written by the author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883: "He's the real Mackay. It"s not only in a different spelling, but a decade before Kid McCoy became famous, and almost certainly refers to the famous Scottish firm of whisky makers. So the debate must continue.

Source: World Wide Words

[Lizavetta]

This reminds me of the time my first grade son's reader informed me that Aesop was an African storyteller. That he was born on the island of Samos (off the coast of Turkey) and spent most of his life in Greece didn't count.

[Cowboy Bob]

If you notice, Elijah McCoy was born in Canada. I guess that makes him an African-American-Canadian!