Lewis Howard Latimer
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Lewis Howard LatimerBornDiedOccupationSpouse(s)ChildrenParent(s)
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Latimer in 1882 m |
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| September 4, 1848 Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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| December 11, 1928 (aged 80) |
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| Inventor, patent consultant, author, engineer, draftsman, Navy Landsman (Rank) | |
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Mary Wilson Lewis
(m. 1873) |
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| Jeanette Latimer (married Gerald F. Norman) Louise Latimer |
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| George Latimer (1818–1897) Rebecca Smith (1823–1910) |
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Lewis Howard Latimer (September 4, 1848 – December 11, 1928) was an American patent draftsman for the patents of the incandescent light bulb, among other inventions.
Contents
Early life and family[edit]
Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, the youngest of the four children of Rebecca Latimer (1823 –1910) and George Latimer (1818–1897).[1] Both of his parents had fled Virginia as runaway slaves 6 years prior to Lewis being born.[2]
Lewis Howard Latimer joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 15 on September 16, 1863, and served as a Landsman on the USS Massasoit. After receiving an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy on July 3, 1865, he gained employment as an office boy with a patent law firm, Crosby Halstead and Gould, with a $3.00 per week salary. He learned how to use a set square, ruler, and other drafting tools. Later, after his boss recognized his talent for sketching patent drawings, Latimer was promoted to the position of head draftsman earning $20.00 a week by 1872.[1]
Latimer married Mary Wilson Lewis on November 15, 1873, in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the daughter of Louisa M. and William Lewis.[3] The couple had two daughters, Emma Jeanette (1883–1978) and Louise Rebecca (1890–1963). Jeanette married Gerald Fitzherbert Norman, the first black person hired as a high school teacher in the New York City public school system,[4] and had two children: Winifred Latimer Norman (1914–2014), a social worker who served as the guardian of her grandfather's legacy, and Gerald Latimer Norman (1911–1990), who became an administrative law judge.
In 1879, Latimer and his wife, Mary, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, along with his mother, Rebecca, and his brother, William. Other family members already living there were his brother, George A. Latimer, and his wife, Jane, and his sister, Margaret, and her husband, Augustus T. Hawley, and their children.
Career[edit]
Inventions and technical work[edit]
In 1874, Latimer co-patented (with Charles M. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363).[5]
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer, then a draftsman at Bell's patent law firm, to draft the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell's telephone.[6]
In 1879, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was hired as assistant manager and draftsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a rival of Thomas A. Edison.
- The Light Bulb
Latimer received a patent on January 17, 1882 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of carbon filaments for lightbulbs.[7][8]
The Edison Electric Light Company in New York City hired Latimer in 1884 as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights. While at Edison, Latimer wrote the first book on electric lighting, entitled Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890),[9] and supervised the installation of public electric lights throughout New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London.[10]
When that company was combined in 1892 with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, he continued to work in the legal department.
In 1911, he became a patent consultant to law firms.[11]
Patents[edit]
- U.S. Patent 147,363 "Improvement in water-closets for railroad-cars" (with Brown, Charles W.), February 10, 1874
- U.S. Patent 247,097 "Electric lamp" (with Nichols, Joseph V.), September 13, 1881
- U.S. Patent 252,386 "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", January 17, 1882
- U.S. Patent 255,212 "Supporter for electric lamps" (with Tregoning, John), March 21, 1882
- U.S. Patent 334,078 "Early Air Conditioning Unit Apparatus for cooling and disinfecting", January 12, 1886
- U.S. Patent 557,076 "Locking rack for hats, coats, and umbrellas", March 24, 1896
- U.S. Patent 968,787 "Lamp fixture" (with Norton, William Sheil), August 30, 1910
Military and draftsman[edit]
Lewis Howard Latimer joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 15 on September 16, 1863, and served as a Landsman on the USS Massasoit. After receiving an honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy on July 3, 1865, he gained employment as an office boy with a patent law firm, Crosby Halstead and Gould, with a $3.00 per week salary. He learned how to use a set square, ruler, and other drafting tools. Later, after his boss recognized his talent for sketching patent drawings, Latimer was promoted to the position of head draftsman earning $20.00 a week by 1872.[1]
Writing[edit]
Latimer also published a book of poetry called Poems of Love and Life.[12] Along with a book called L. H. Latimer, Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890).[9][13]
Death and legacy[edit]
For 25 years, from 1903 until his death in 1928, Latimer lived with his family in a home on Holly Avenue in what is known now as East Flushing section of Queens, New York.[14] Latimer died on December 11, 1928, at the age of 80.[15] Approximately sixty years after his death, his home was moved from Holly Avenue to 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, which is about 1.4 miles northwest of its original location.[14]
- Latimer is an inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on electric filament manufacturing techniques.[16]
- The Latimer family house is on Latimer Place in Flushing, Queens. It was moved from the original location to a nearby small park and turned into the Lewis H. Latimer House Museum in honor of the inventor.[14][17][18]
- Latimer was a founding member of the Flushing, New York, Unitarian Church.
- A set of apartment houses in Flushing are called "Latimer Gardens".[19]
- P.S. 56 in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, is named Lewis H. Latimer School in Latimer's honor.
- An invention program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, is named after him.[20]
Joe Biden and CNN[edit]
On 3 September 2020, USA Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden mistakenly claimed that a Black man had invented the light bulb, not "a White guy named Edison.” CNN later corrected Biden's error: "No, a Black man didn't invent the light bulb. But Lewis Howard Latimer made it better".[21]
References[edit]
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Fouché, Rayvon, Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson, Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8018-7319-3.
- ^ Center, Smithsonian Lemelson (1999-02-01). "Innovative Lives: Lewis Latimer (1848-1928): Renaissance Man". Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
- ^ Massachusetts Marriages 253:121, Massachusetts Archives, Columbia Point, Boston
- ^ Dick, Russell (2009). Black Genius: Inspirational Portraits of America's Black Leaders. New York: Skyhorse Publications. ISBN 978-1-60239-369-1.
- ^ "Patent Improvement in water-closets for railroad-cars (US147363A)" – via US Patent – Google Patent.
- ^ Clarke, John Henrik (1983). Ivan Van Sertima (ed.). Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction. pp. 230–233. ISBN 978-0-87855-941-1.
- ^ "Lewis Howard Latimer". National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
- ^ U.S. Patent 252,386Process Of Manufacturing Carbons. by Lewis H. Latimer. Application filed on Feb 19, 1881, Specified on Jan 17, 1882
- ^ Jump up to:a b Catalog Record: Incandescent electric lighting. A practical description of the Edison system, Hathi Trust Digital Library. Retrieved 2018-12- 25.
- ^ "Historical Inventors: Lewis H. Latimer: The carbon-filament light bulb". MIT bio., MIT Lemelson program
- ^ Gates, Henry Louis, and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, African American Lives, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 515–516. ISBN 0-19-516024-X
- ^ Judd, Michael (1998). "Lewis Latimer: African American Inventor, Poet and Activist". Organization of Historians. 12: 25–30 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Lewis Howard Latimer; C. J. Field; John W. Howell (1890). Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System. New York: D. Van Nostrand company.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c "Historic House Trust NYC". Historichousetrust.org. Archived from the original on 2008-02-16.
- ^ "Lewis H. Latimer Dead. Member of Edison Pioneers. Drew Original Plans for Bell Phone". New York Times. December 13, 1928.
- ^ "List of 2006 NIHF inductees". Invent.org. Archived from the original on 2008-05-13.
- ^ "A Campaign To Remember An Inventor". New York Times. August 6, 1988.
- ^ "An Inventor Who Kept Lights Burning". New York Times. January 29, 1995.
- ^ "Latimer Gardens Apartments". Nyc.gov. Archived from the original on 2009-02-24.
- ^ "Lemelson-MIT". Mit.edu. Archived from the original on 2003-06-28.
- ^ No, a Black man didn't invent the light bulb. But Lewis Howard Latimer made it better CNN, 4 September 2020
External links[edit]
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lewis Howard Latimer. |
- Lewis Latimer at the IEEE
- Lewis Howard Latimer: Inventor, Engineer (Mechanical and Electrical)
- Bibliography about Latimer and scans of pages from his book
- Lewis Latimer: Renaissance Man by Luvenia George for the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation
- Teachers' guide by Luvenia George on Latimer, published by the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation
- "Blueprint for Change", a 1995 exhibition honoring Latimer at the which holds a collection of his papers and artifacts.
- Lewis Latimer biography at About.com
- Profile of Lewis Latimer – The Black Inventor Online Museum
- Lewis Howard Latimer at Find a Grave
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