Original photo by Zachary Frank/ Alamy Stock Photo
The world would be unrecognizable without the groundbreaking contributions of Black inventors. Whether it’s the country’s most popular toy or a well-known piece of lifesaving battlefield gear, the extraordinary men and women who dreamed up these ideas did so while facing virulent racism and systemic injustice, yet persevered to make the world a better — or at least more interesting — place.
While Working at NASA, Lonnie Johnson Invented the Super Soaker
Inventor Lonnie Johnson has quite the résumé. A nuclear engineer by profession, Johnson worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, joined the Air Force, then jumped ship to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1979, where he worked on Galileo — a robotic orbiter studying Jupiter and its moons. While at NASA, Johnson worked on a heat pump that used water instead of Freon. “I was experimenting with some nozzles that I machined, and I shot a stream of water across the bathroom,” Johnson told CNN in 2020. “I thought, ‘Geez, maybe I should put this hard science stuff aside and work on something fun like a water gun.’” In 1989, Johnson licensed his famous invention, and in two years, the Super Soaker became the No. 1 toy in America, making more than $200 million in sales.
Alexander Miles Made Elevators Less Harrowing
Alexander Miles first found success as a barber, and then as an elevator innovator. The first passenger elevator debuted in 1853, but riding one was less than ideal. Because elevator doors had to be manually operated, elevator-related deaths were far too common. An owner of many buildings himself, Miles saw firsthand the dangers of elevators and decided to do something about it. Using a flexible belt attached to the elevator cage, drums above and below the doors on each floor, and other equipment, Miles’ invention automated the process of opening and closing elevator doors. Miles was granted a patent for his invention in 1887. At the time of his death in 1918 in Seattle, the barber-turned-inventor was the wealthiest Black man living in the Pacific Northwest.
The Inventor of the Home Security System Was a Nurse
Necessity is the mother of invention, and that can certainly be said of Marie Van Brittan Brown and her home security system. In the mid-1960s, Brown lived in a rough neighborhood in Queens, New York, while working as a nurse. She was often alone at night, so she decided to design her own peace of mind. Her invention featured four peepholes on the front door and a motorized camera that could look through the holes at varying heights. The camera was connected to a television inside the home, and a microphone both inside and outside the door allowed her to interrogate uninvited visitors. For added security, Brown also devised a way to alert police via radio. This ingenious use of cameras and closed-circuit television helped Brown score a patent for her security system in 1969. Today, Brown’s invention is widely regarded as the cornerstone of modern home security systems.
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George Washington Carver Was the First Black American Honored With a National Monument
George Washington Carver is one of the greatest minds in American history. Primarily an agricultural scientist, he invented hundreds of products using sweet potatoes, soybeans, and peanuts (but not peanut butter, as a persistent myth suggests). Carver was born enslaved around 1864, but 30 years later, and after many trials, he earned a bachelor’s degree in science. And he put that degree to work. Carver developed crop rotation methods, invented the Jesup wagon (a sort of mobile classroom for Carver to teach farmers about agricultural science), and lots of peanut-based products, including milk, Worcestershire sauce, cooking oils, paper, cosmetics, and wood stains. Carver died in early 1943 having dedicated his life to science, and a grateful nation honored him for his efforts later that same year, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the George Washington Carver National Monument. It was the first national monument dedicated to a Black American — or to any non-President.
Traffic Signal Inventor Garrett Morgan Was Also a Hero
Garrett Morgan’s life as an inventor began at the turn of the 20th century, when he started working at a sewing machine factory. After learning the inner workings of his machines, Morgan patented an improvement that earned him some much-needed income. He later developed a hair-straightening cream that made him financially independent and able to pursue his own interests. In 1914, Morgan developed “safety hoods” for firefighters to wear when battling blazes, and the underlying design eventually found its way into the trenches of World War I. Then, in 1916, Morgan became a local hero when a tunnel explosion under Lake Erie trapped workers in close quarters with noxious fumes. Upon hearing of the accident, Morgan and his brother donned their breathing devices and saved two people’s lives. However, Morgan’s greatest invention came in 1923, when he developed the first automatic traffic signal to control stop-and-go traffic at intersections. He acquired patents for the device in the United States, Britain, and Canada, and it saved thousands of lives over the years.
George Crum Accidentally Invented the Potato Chip
In the 1850s, George Crum (born George Speck) worked at Moon’s Lake House, a high-end restaurant in upstate New York. The legend goes that one day a surly customer didn’t like the way Crum prepared his french fries and complained they were too thick. With a not-so-subtle amount of spite, Crum cut some fresh potatoes incredibly thin and then fried them up for his needy patron. To Crum’s surprise, the thinly sliced fry — or potato chip, as we call it today — became a big hit, and soon the restaurant became known for its “Saratoga chips.” Although the owner of the restaurant tried to take credit for the invention, as did others, Crum soon opened his own establishment and provided a basket of chips on every table. The potato chip remained a local delicacy in upstate New York until Herman Lay began building his snack food empire in the 1920s.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
