African American Contributions to the Advancement of Science and Technology:
A Lost Link in the Chain
Tyler C. Hollinger
What is this all about?
It is old news that African Americans have often been shortchanged throughout
our American History. Through slavery, enduring Jim Crowe laws, and various other
hardships, African Americans have struggled to find ways to level the playing field and
achieve in the same ways that are easier for European Americans. African American
scientists and inventors have faced these same challenges. Their work throughout history
has often been overlooked or credited to other inventors and scientists with a lighter skin
color. If we look at various inventions and technology in use today, we can trace many
of the roots and precursor inventions back to important advances that were spearheaded
by African Americans.
The ideas and resources presented here are chosen to address the following fourth
grade academic content standards and indicators in Ohio:
Social Studies
•
Construct time lines with evenly spaced intervals for years, decades and centuries
to show the order of significant events in Ohio history.
•
Explain the importance of inventors such as the Wright Brothers, Charles
Kettering, Garrett Morgan, Granville Woods and Thomas Edison. (Underlined
names are of African American Inventors).
•
Describe the cultural practices and products of various groups who have settled in
Ohio over time: African Americans.
Science
•
Explain how technology from different areas has improved human lives.
•
Investigate how technology and inventions change to meet peoples' needs and
wants.
Although the indicators listed above are from a fourth grade curriculum, the lesson and
activity ideas included here are written at a high school level. This is because it is simpler
to reevaluate lessons for younger grades than it is to revise a lesson for higher grades.
Background
It seems that the technologies available to us are improving by the minute. Every
day there is something new being created, a new medical breakthrough, a new way to
communicate with people, a new way to get from point A to point B, or a new way to
access information. Inventors and scientists are responsible for these advances in
technology.
Many Americans know Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone.
They know Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb. Not often though do we
think of Lewis Latimer, an African American who worked in the laboratories of both Bell
and Edison and even invented the carbon filament, a part that played an important role in
Edison’s success creating the light bulb. Lewis Latimer is just one of many African
Americans who contributed to the advancement of technology and invention.
Elijah McCoy was an African American who invented an oil-dripping cup for
trains. Nobody else could create a cup that worked as well, even if they tried to copy
McCoy’s, so train operators began asking for "the real McCoy." Many of us have heard
this expression used, but very few know where it came from.
Jan Ernst Matzeliger invented a “lasting” machine for attaching shoes to their
hard soles. Before Matzeliger's machine, expert hand lasters would create around 50
shoes a day. Matzeliger's machine raised that number to as high as 700 pairs of shoes a
day.
Granville T. Woods, with little formal education, taught himself about electricity
by working in railroad shops and asking friends to check out books from the library for
him. Woods was not welcome at many libraries because he was black. He later went on
to create a system for trains to communicate with stations. This system was called
telegraphony. Alexander Graham Bell’s company bought this system. This gave Woods
enough money to become a full time inventor. He later invented the multiplex telegraph,
a system which allowed moving trains to communicate with each other, and then won a
patent case for this invention after a law suit from Thomas Edison.
Garrett A. Morgan invented the safety hood, a precursor to the gas mask. Using
his hood, Morgan saved several workers after an accident occurred in a tunnel under
Lake Erie. Morgan also later invented an early model of the traffic light. Because of
Garrett A. Morgan, we are much safer.
It is my hope that by using the activities that I have included here, my students
will be able to identify ways that technology has influenced their own lives and recognize
that African Americans played an important role in its advancement.
Activities
Activity I:
Ask students the following questions:
•
Who invented the light bulb?
•
What do you think are the most important parts of the light bulb?
•
Did Thomas Edison invent every part of the light bulb himself?
•
Who invented the different parts of the light bulb?
After discussing the questions above, students can create a web with a light bulb in the
center. Branching out from the center should be each part of the light bulb such as glass,
carbon filament, etc. Next to each part, students should indicate who invented it or
developed the process for creating it. Students will find that Louis Latimer, an African
American, invented the carbon filament of a light bulb. This could be followed up with
questions like:
•
Could Thomas Edison have created the light bulb without a filament?
•
How would your life be different now if Louis Latimer had not invented
the carbon filament?
This activity could easily be adapted to make students think about the
contributions of other African American Inventors.
Activity II:
Ask students to identify an invention that they think is very important to their
lives today. Ask the students to create a web of things that were important to the creation
of the invention they thought of. From their web, students should create a timeline that
shows the path in which the necessary pieces were developed. There is an excellent
example of an invention timeline in The Illustrated Timeline of Inventions, A Crash
Course in Words and Pictures, by Craig Sandler.
After students have completed their timelines, they should write each section of
the timeline on a post-it note and stick each post-it to the front of a book. Line the books
up so the post-it notes are in order of the timeline. Have the students determine which
section(s) of the timeline African American inventors influenced. Remove the books with
these post-it notes on them from the line and knock them over like dominoes, beginning
with the earliest event. When the books stop falling, any book after the first contribution
of an African American would still be standing, that is, it would have never happened.
Students should then answer the question, “How would your life be different without the
contributions of that African American inventor?
Activity III
Have students look at the pictures in the book, Faces of Science, by Mariana
Cook. Ask the students:
•
What do you see when you look at these pictures?
•
What do scientists look like?
•
This book claims to show pictures of scientists who have made the greatest
discoveries of our time. Do you think they have included them all?
•
Do you see any African American scientists?
•
Have African Americans made contributions to the advancement of science and
technology?
•
Do you think any African Americans should have been included in this book?
Have their contributions been Great Enough?
•
Who would you add to this book that you think might be missing?
Give students a chance to research and find scientists that they think should, or could,
have been included in this book and may not have been. Have them create a spread for
this person that could be inserted.
Activity IV
Visit the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Akron, OH.
While students explore, have them keep track of the African American inventors they
see. Have them answer the following questions:
•
What contributions did you see from African Americans?
•
If African Americans did not make these contributions, how would that have
affected other inventors?
•
If African Americans did not make these contributions, how would your life have
been different?
NOTE: Currently there is a Michael Jackson exhibit at Virginia’s National Inventor’s
Hall of Fame Museum that includes a copy of a patent application belonging to him.
Jackson is the co-inventor of a “system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly
beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes which
will engage with a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface.”
Applicable Resources
Books
Aaseng, N. (1997). Black Inventors. New York, NY: Facts on File.
Adler, R.E. (2002). Science Firsts, From the Creation of Science to the Science of
Creation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
African-American Inventors. Website. Accessed on July 21, 2009. http://www.africanamericaninventors.org/
African American Inventors From Dreams to Reality. VHS. Huntsville, TX: Education
Video Network. (1986)
Austin, R. (2007). Now You Know! XL - Black Inventors Series. DVD.
Bailey, G. (2005). The Top Ten Inventors. Minneapolis, MN: Picture Window Books.
This book is written for lower grades.
Bolden, T. (2008). George Washington Carver. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Dalton, C. (2001). How Ohio Helped Invent the World: From the Airplane to the Yo-Yo,
More Than 85 Great (and not so great) Inventions From the Buckeye State. Dayton, OH:
Curt Dalton.
Dyson, J. (2001). A History of Great Inventions. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf
Publishers.
Evans, H. (2004). They Made America, From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two
Centuries of Innovators. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company: Time Warner
Book Group.
Cook, M. (2005). Faces of Science. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Fortey, J. (2007). Eyewhitness Books: Great Scientists, Discover the Pioneers Who
Changed the Way We Think About Our World. New York, NY: DK Publishing
Fouche, R. (2003). Black inventors in the age of segregation : Granville T. Woods, Lewis
H. Latimer, & Shelby J. Davidson. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Holmes, K. (2008). Black Inventors, Crafting Over 200 Years of Success. Brooklyn, NY:
Global Black Inventor Research Projects, Inc.
Hudson, W. (1995). Great Black Heroes, Five Notable Inventors. St. Paul, MN:
Cartwheel. This book is written for lower grades.
Jedicke, P. (2007). Scientific American: Great Inventions of the 20th Century. New York,
NY, Infobase Publishing. This book is written for lower grades.
Jones, L. (2000). Great Black Heroes, Five Brilliant Scientists. East Orange, NJ: Just Us
Books, Inc. This book is written for lower grades.
Karwatka, D. (1999). Technology's Past Vol 2., More Heroes of Invention and
Innovation. Ann Arbor, MI: Prakken Publications, Inc.
MacLeod, E. (2007). George Washington Carver, An Innovative Life. Tonawanda, NY:
Kids Can Press Ltd. This book is written for lower grades.
Maupin, M. (2000). Journey to Freedom: The African American Library: Benjamin
Banneker. The Child's World, Inc.
McGrath, K. (1999). World of Invention, History's Most Significant Investigations and the
People Behind Them. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research.
McKinley, B. (1989). Black Inventors of America. Portland, OR: National Bk. Co.
Sandler, C. (2007). The Illustrated Timeline of Inventions, A Crash Course in Words &
Pictures. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
Sullivan, O.R. (1998). African American Inventors. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons,
Inc.
Sullivan, O.R. (2001). African American Women Scientists and Inventors. New York, NY:
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
The Top Ten African American Inventors. Website.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/inventors/
Williams, M. (2005). Hooray for Inventors! Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press. This
book is written for lower grades.