Lewis Howard Latimer overcame many obstacles to make great achievements in life.
He was the youngest of four children, born to former slaves after a church in Boston bought his
parents' freedom for them and helped them move north. But life was not easy for even free
African Americans. Since he worked with his father, Latimer attended school only occasionally.
He attended long enough to skip a grade and to discover that his favorite subjects were creative
writing and drawing.
Like many children at the time, much of Latimer's childhood was spent helping earn
money for his family. At first, the boy helpe~his father at his barbershop during the day and
hung wallpaper with him at night. Later Latimer sold newspape~ one of which was The
Liberator, ~bolitionist paper. Another job he had w¥ as office boy, doing odd jobs. When the
Civil War broke out, Latimer, lied about his age andyed u~ththe Navy. There he worked
as a~ on a gunboat until the end of the war in 1865.
After the Civil War ended, Lewis Latimer worked as an office boy for a patent company.
A patent company receives information from inventors to prove they created their own original
invention. If they have proof, they are awarded a patent from the government, which protects
their invention from being copied. One thing inventors provide. is a.or draft of their invention. A
draft is a drawing with precise instructions and measurements.
Since he loved drawing, especially mechanical drawing, Latimer in his free time taught
himself to draft. When the company saw how well he could draft, they promoted him to
£!raftsman. One inventor saw Latimer's drafts and asked that Latimer draw his new invention.
That inventor was Alexander Graham Bell and his invention was the telephone. After drafting
the telephone, Latimer helped Bell apply for the patent as well.
More people took notice of Latimer's drafting talent. It was unusual for an Mrican American to
have such a skilledjob; and Latimer's drafts were especially good. Hiram Maxim was the owner
of an rl,ectric company as well as an inventor. When Maxim saw Latimer's work, he hired
Latimer on the spot. Having worked on only one electrical device the telephone - Latimer had
to teach himself electrical engineering as well.
Soon, Latimer was setting up public lighting systems for entire cities. He traveled to
places such as New York City; Montre-al, Canada; Paris, France; and Lond;D, England, to install
lights and teach people how to create and maintain them. To communicate directly with his
workers, L~to quickly learn French. Also, both he and his wife learned German while
living in London. Latimer grew tired of this job and needed a more challenging position. He
started creating his own inventions. In fact, he developed a way to create part of the light bulb so
kwould burn longer. He
re~~.pate:p.t for this carp£n- ......,
filament,
which was eVj:JlUwlJY..sold
to
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"'" ............. Thomas E~ison. The filament greatly improved Edison's electric light bulb and made it usable.
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After working for several other electric companies, Thomas Edison himself hired Lewis
Latimer as a cEief draftsman and someone who could help Edison's electric company apply for
patents. Another of Latimer jobs was to defend the ~ompany's patents in legal battl . Lewis
Latimer was also part of the exclusive team 0 sCIentists, which founded "Edison Pioneers." This
-..,""'-,,_.----respected organization was dedicated to keeping alive Edison's spirit of pioneering. Lewis
Latimer was the £,nly African American ~ft1e group.
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Lewis Latimer invented various types of devices. He creat~d a flushing water closet, now
called a toilet, for railway trains. Latimer was known for his machine iYll.. He also created an
early version of the $lir CQQ<!!.tioner that purified the air. Of course, the inventor is most known
for his work on the i.nc.....andescent light bulb. His g!!rbon:f:ilarn~m was used in light bulbs until
1920 when technology advanced enough to use tungsten. Latimer also created the threade4
.socket, which allows the bulb to screw into a fixture. In additi0n to his inventions, Latimer wrote
cal
ineerin which
the first electrical engineering manual known as th~_"wble" 0
helped engineers for manx years. The book was published in the same year Latimer fmished a
~opginal poetry.
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...
Lewis Latimer was many other things besides an inventor and draftsman. He had a family
of his own, developed his creative side, and participated
in community actiyities.. He also wrote
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.Iili!Y§, which were performed and were known for their comedy. After hours of drafting at work,
Latimer often went horne to draw portrait~ He also played violin and flute, often accompanied
by his two daughters.
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Along with his other activities, somehow Latimer also found time to be ~active in his
~mmunity. He founded a Unitarian church in his neighborhood, a branch of the very ciUirch that
had helped his parents out of slavery. He supported civilrights and was active in an organization
for war veterans. For a time, Latime~taught German immigrants English and tau2ht many of
them drafting.
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Thomas Alva Edison was a pioneer in the field of inventing. He was born in 1847, in
Milan, Ohio, his brothers and sisters were much older than him; so Edison basically grew up by
himself. He was partially deaf due to an illness he had as a child, and his hearing worsened as he
got older. Edison was a very curious child, a trait that often got him into trouble. Once he
accidentally burned down his family's barn; he constantly asked questions which annoyed his
teachers. Edison's mother took Edison out of school to home-school him herself. She allowed
him to create his own experiments, read a lot, and avoid subjects like math.
As a child, he would work as a newsboy on trains between his home in Port Huron,
Michigan, and the larger city of Detroit. During the four hours before the ride back, the twelve­
year-old would spend his time in a reading room to continue his own education. While selling
newspapers and candy on trains, Edison became an entrepreneur by borrowing money and
clevelopinghls own pricing and marketing techniques. An entrepreneur is someone who starts his
or her own business. Next, Edison taught himself how to use a typesetter, the machine printers
used before typewriters and computers. He then wrote, advertised, and sold his own papers!
During free time onboard the trains, the boy set up a lab in a boxcar where he conducted
experiments. His laboratory was shut down, however, when it caused a fire on the train.
While working on the railways, Edison saved a stationmaster's son in a train accident. To
reward Edison, the stationmaster taught him how to send and read messages on the telegraph.
Edison became a telegraph operator in Port Huron. At age 17, however, Edison moved to
Ontario, Canada, to be a telegraph ope~. This job enabled him to travel and work in many
cities across the United States and Canada. Edison continued building new devices, one of which
was an !!!ltomatic timer.,on the telegraph so he wouldn't have to send messages in the middle of
the night.
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Finally, Edison decided that he wanted to be an inventor and settled in Boston where he
shared a workshop with other inventors and scientists. Edison's first official invention was the
. e. lectric voting machin~ He received the first of his 1,093 patents for it. Although it worked well,
no one wanted Edison's electric voting machine. As a result, he developed a new business
philosophy to create only what people knew they needed.
Edison's father built a research lab for him in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The Menlo Park
shop was the first idea factory of its kind in the world that had a 1@orato~ra machine shop, a
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e~arpent~, an office, and a library. EdisonJili:.ed many assistants , with many specialties from
,.,
all dver the world. Edison never stole his assistants' ideas, although people credit him with any
invention that came out of Menlo Park. Of course, the teams of scientists also worked so closely
together that they all used each other's ideas to create something new. Edison chose assistants he
thought knew more about a subject than he did. For example, he hired a mathematician because
he had never learned math.
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Despite his increasing deafness, Edison's favorite invention was the phono~. Created
in 1877, it was the first recorded sound player. It eventually developed from record player to tape
player to compact discs. Even MP3s are related to Edison's phonograph. The "Wizard" was
actually trying to improve the telegraph and the telepho~ when he accidentally invented this
new machine. After photography was invented, Edison made the first "J!loving pictures,",now
called movies.
In Edison's time, electric lights were already being used, but they were messy, expensive,
noisy, too bright, and generally impractical. The electric arc lights could only be used outdoors.
People still used gas lights and candles to light their homes and offices. Many inventors across
the world were trying to fmd a better way to make light using electricity. In 1860, English
inventor Sir Joseph Wilson Swan created the first electric light bulb. The inventor's bulb could
not really be used yet because the filament burned up too quickly. Swan periodically improved
his invention and gave the world's first bulb light demonstration in 1878. Unfortunately for him,
the bulb was still not practical because of the short life of the filament.
In 1878, Edison used Lewis Latimer's carbon filament to make a bulb grow brighter and
last longer. Edison's company installed a glass-blowing shed at the lab to make the bulbs. Edison
had people send material from allover the world to try to use in the bulb. His bulbs were first
installed on a steamship and in a New York City factory. Edison Electric set up the first power
station, a building that generates and controls electricity for an entire area.
Swan's original low-voltage, high-current invention is still used in flashlights and used in
automobiles. And Edison is still considered the inventor of the light bulb because he made it
useful. Edison developed more inventions than almost anyone. And besides creating, Edison
continued improving his own and other people's inventions throughout his lifetime. Even before
he died in 1931, "Edison'S Pioneers" was created. This select group of scientists worked to keep
Edison's ideas alive.
The factory in West Orange is now a national monument, run by the National Park system.
Thomas Edison's long list of inventions includes the electric voting machine, stock ticker
phonograph, practical electric light bulb, alkaline storage battery, microphone, motion-picture
cameras, and movie projectors. Many of his actual original devices still work to this day.