Day 17 - Lonnie G. Johnson - Not Just A Super Soaker

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You might have heard that one of the best selling toys of all time was made by a black man. I'm talking about the Super Soaker.


My son had one of these things when he was little. He and my daughter used to invite hoards of kids to our house and they would have water fights. Water balloons, super soakers, the hose, and the Slip n' Slide.

They had a big time.

When I was looking for African American inventors, I didn't even bother with the "Father of the Super Soaker".

His story sounded like a David and Goliath type of tale.

He invented the Super Soaker, Hasbro didn't give him credit for it -  by which I mean that didn't want to pay him - he sued them, won, and got a huge payday.

How many African American inventors had to go through this? Lots. As much fun as the Super Soaker is, I wasn't certain it merited an entire blog post.

Then, I learned about Lonnie Johnson.

All I could think as I read through his biography is - You've got to be kidding me! This is the guy who created the Super Soaker? This guy? How come we only know about the Super Soaker?

I don't even know where to begin!

He was born in Mobile, Al on October 6th (that's my birthday too) in 1949. His father, a WWII vet who became a handyman after the war, noticed that Lonnie liked to tinker with things. So, at a young age, his father explained how electricity worked.

The kids in Lonnie's neighborhood called him "The Professor" because he was always tinkering and inventing things.

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He made a go-kart with a working engine when he was a kid. He created it out of scrap metal. They had to push it to get it going, but once it was going, it could sustain itself. Eventually, the police made them stop using it. Apparently, when children create a motorized vehicle it isn't likely to come up to basic road standards.

He continued to tinker the entire time he was growing up. He even made his own toys.

He attended segregated Williamson High School in Alabama. He actually graduated in the last segregated class.

He was fascinated by robots he saw on television. He had no idea they were just suits with actors in them. So, he decided to build one for himself. It took him a year, and at the end of his senior year, his school entered Lonnie's creation, Linex, into the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) Science Fair held at the University of Alabama in 1968.

Incidentally, this is the same university where George Wallace attempted to prevent the first two black students who were enrolled there from entering about five years earlier.

Linux and Lonnie

Lonnie's high school was the only black school that entered the competition. Linex, Lonnie's robot, won first prize. The people who were judging the competition were not from the university.

The university officials didn't seem too happy about Lonnie's win. He recalls that nobody from the university said anything to him aside from "Good-bye" and "Ya'll drive safe."

They were not interested in the senior who had built his own working robot. Well, who would be? I mean, that wasn't such an incredible thing for an eighteen-year-old to do in 1968.

Anyway, he ended up at Tuskeegee where he achieved advanced degrees in mechanical and nuclear engineering.



What he discovered once he got out into the working world was that Tuskeegee had prepared him better to be an engineer than some of the white engineers he encountered who'd gotten educations at some of the most prestigious schools in the country.

I would like to editorialize here: I suspect that this was not because the other schools lacked solid education. Lonnie G. Johnson is freaking brilliant. That might have had something to do with it.

I know, you're thinking, "So, after all of that he made the Super Soaker, and that is his claim to fame after all of that fancy education?"

Well, I suppose so, but on the way there he also:

Add caption

- Helped develop systems for the stealth bomber for the military

Galileo Spacecraft

- In 1979 he was the systems engineer for Galileo - You know, for NASA









- Then, in the 1980s while working on some other projects, he accidentally created the basis for the Super Soaker. He sold it to a company that Hasbro acquired.

- In 1991 The Super Soaker made over 200 million dollars.

- He holds over one hundred patents

He made a mint after Hasbro paid up. He left industry and opened his own company.

Johnson Research and Development.

He started working on something he calls the Johnson Thermo Electric Energy Converter. This thing would turn heat energy into electricity.

It has generated a ton of interest. If he gets this thing working it will revolutionize the green energy industry.

He's already made a huge mark on the world culturally, militarily, and astronomically...I suppose it is time to do it ecologically.

Lonnie G. Johnson - So much more than a Super Soaker!

Still, that thing is really cool. I'm just sayin'

In 2011, Johnson was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame - The first black engineer ever to have been so honored.

Lonnie G. Johnson

Celebrate Black History!

Day 16 - Dr. George Edward Alcorn Jr. Is Out Of This World!

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I love outer space. I do. I love looking at pics on NASA's website. I was absolutely in love with the Mars Rover, and I am always geeked out when we discover something cool beyond the boundary of our atmosphere.

Pluto!

I do not pretend to know how any of it works, but I do love to read about it.

So, when I ran across Dr. George Edward Alcorn Jr. I was stoked. I was also flummoxed about much of what he did. Let me explain.

Dr. Alcorn was born in 1940. I could understand that part.

He was not only a brilliant man who graduated with honors from Occidental College in Los Angeles, but also lettered in both football and basketball.

So far so good.

Then, he got his PH.D. from Howard in atomic and molecular engineering in the early 1960s.

Okay, got it.

Mars Rover

He spent twelve years working for IBM and became an IBM Visiting Professor at Howard University teaching electrical engineering.

Okay. Not so hard to understand. Then, he went to work for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

This is when things get both interesting and completely difficult to explain. Let me start by saying that he holds twenty patents for inventing things.

Most of the things he invented...absolutely unintelligible to me. I can write them out and research them, and then they make sense, but in terms of explaining them to anyone, I would need a dictionary and more space here than I mean to spend on any one inventor though he really deserves it.

To that end, I will explain one of them as completely as I can, give a summary of what another is, and then, if you really want to do it, you can look up all of the other things he's invented.

In 1979 he started patenting things. The first ones had to do with semiconductors for IBM. 

What is a semiconductor?





In 1984, Dr. Alcorn patented a thing that changed the way we look at space....literally.

He filed a patent for the X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer. This thing allowed for the detection of radio signatures at a more distant and accurate rate than previously possible and influenced the continued evolution of imaging devices.

What does that mean?

x-ray Imaging 

"Used with space telescopes and other satellites, x-ray imaging spectrometers provide highly useful data for a wide range of scientific and technical applications. With improvements that addressed structural and performance deficiencies, Alcorn's devices and their descendants have been used to conduct planetary mapping, search for new planets, create star charts to reveal motions of systems, and examine deep space phenomena."

In other words, most of the coolest images we have of distant things in space, all of our information we have as we search for "earthlike planets", the mapping of Pluto, the Giant Earth discovery, and many of those other cool images are possible because of Dr. Alcorn. I have been a huge fan of his work for years, and I had no idea!

In 1999, Dr. Alcorn was awarded the Technology Leadership Award. One of two awards that can be awarded to NASA employees. That was the year he invented the Airborne topographical Mapping System.

In 2015 he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.

Dr. George Edward Alcorn  Fr.

I give you George Edward Alcorn Jr.

A man who has got us closer to the stars!

Celebrate Black History!

Day 15 - Lewis Temple - Thar She Blows!

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I read Moby Dick in high school. It was not my favorite experience. The teachers knew we probably wouldn't like it, and they taught it together. All four English classes met in a large space to discuss and dissect the book.

As someone who loves whales and abhors the idea that anyone would kill and eat them, I was not best pleased to read the book, and the lengthy sections about skinning, processing and preparing the creatures were pretty horrible.



Recently, I read an article that said Herman Melville was not completely true to the ways of whaling, and that there is a great deal of fiction mixed in with what I was taught was an actual real-life look at whaling.

My response to this revelation that Melville - who wrote a fictional story about a white whale - might have also fictionalized parts of his story about whalers is - no surprise here - FICTION. He wrote fiction! I sometimes get annoyed that our instructors taught it as a true look at whaling, but in moments of clarity, I realize it wasn't their fault. American Whaling hasn't been a going concern in our society since the 1920s. They knew as much about whaling as the average person...which is nothing.

Why am I going on about this? Easy. There is a black man who revolutionized the whaling industry in the early 1800s.

His name was Lewis Temple. (1800 - 1854)

Lewis Temple was born in Richmond, Va. I have found sources that claim he was born enslaved, and other sources that claim he was born free and still other sources that just straight up say they have no idea. Based on all the available information I can find, there is no clear evidence either way.

The sources that claim Lewis was born enslaved skip over his life until the age of 29. There is no discussion about how he might have attained his freedom or what he was doing prior to that or who might have enslaved him or anything like that. This does not mean he wasn't enslaved, just that incidents surrounding his freedom are missing.

Either way, in 1829, Lewis Temple moved to New Bedford, MA. and found work as a blacksmith. He did well for himself and eventually opened a shop of his own on the waterfront in New Bedford. At the time, he was one of 315,000 free black men in America who were successful businessmen in their own right.

Whaling Ships at New Bedford

Being on the waterfront, much of Temple's smithing work evolved around the most profitable industry that did business there: the whaling industry.

Through discussions with whalers, he found out that the biggest problem they had with their craft was that they had a difficult time keeping the whales. Once harpooned, whales would roll, and the harpoons would come right out of their blubber. Their catch rate did not reflect the effort required to bring in a whale.

Temple Iron

As a blacksmith, Lewis was aware of various kinds of tools for hunting different types of game. He applied his knowledge of tools from First Nation hunters to whale hunting technology and came up with a newly designed harpoon. After entering the whale's blubber, the spearhead would rotate and lock in place, creating a secure hold in two directions that locked it into the whale's body.

Temple Iron

This innovation did not catch on at first. Whalers were two things: superstitious and stubborn.
I am not a fisherman, but I have always been fascinated by voyager superstitions. It seems to me that the less control people have over a thing, the more superstitions they will create in order to give themselves the illusion of control.

My first encounter with sailing superstitions was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Killing an Albatross was considered a horrible transgression against the sea. Bad luck will follow you always if you kill one of these creatures. That was the Ancient Mariner's crime.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink.
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

A few sailor superstitions - 

 - Throw oil into the sea to calm the waves
- Women on a boat are bad luck
- The sea is calmed when it sees bare-breasted women (This is why so many of the figures on the front of sea vessels were half-naked women)
- The one time women were allowed on the boat was after a long voyage. If you simply couldn't wait to be with a woman you could enjoy your partner on the gun deck. There is some speculation that this is the origin of the term "son of a gun".

All of that is to say that whalers, aside from a few modifications to the shape and size of their boats, had been whaling the same way for hundreds of years, and they weren't going to change what they were doing for anyone, thank you very much!

Then, as always, a few captains decided to try the new-fangled harpoons and it improved their hauls. Before long, word spread about these new Temple Toggle Irons, which was eventually shortened to Temple Irons. Overnight, everybody needed them right now.

Temple never patented his design and before long, they were the mainstay of every blacksmith on the port. Some smiths even gave them their own names, but everybody knew they were actually Temple Irons, and whalers never called them anything other than that.

Lewis was a well-respected businessman and abolitionist. In 1834 he was elected vice president of the New Bedford Union Society. It was the first black auxiliary group of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

With respect, funds, and plans, Lewis began construction of a larger, grander shop on the waterfront. Unfortunately, in 1854, he was walking down a street in New Bedford, when he fell through a plank that a city worker had placed over an open sewer. He was badly injured and never worked again.

He sued the city for negligence and won a settlement for two thousand dollars.

He died before the money could be paid. After his death, his wife, Mary Clark and her son Lewis Temple Jr, were forced to sell everything they had to cover his debts and were impoverished.

The City of New Bedford eventually paid the settlement to Mary and Lewis Jr. with interest.

Today, Lewis Temple is recognized as having revolutionized the whaling industry and bringing it to its height before whaling was abolished in the 1920s as other forms of fuel replaced whale oil, and overfishing of whales made the industry unsustainable.

Lewis Temple Memorial

Clifford Ashley, author of The Yankee Whaler has said that Temple's Harpoon was the single most important invention of the Whaling Industry. It was certainly the only improvement made to the industry in the 19th century.

in 1987, the city of New Bedford, MA dedicated a statue to Lewis Temple. It is on pleasant Street outside the New Bedford Free Public Library. It is based on a photograph of Lewis Jr. because no image of Lewis Temple Sr. survives.

So, when you see pictures of whalers beyond the 1830s, or you study the golden age of the whaling industry in America, you are looking at the work of an African American man who's ingenuity helped build fortunes for men in New England.



Celebrate Balck History!

Day 13 - Benjamin Montgomery - On His Own Terms

Benjamin Montgomery

What does it look like when you are so brilliant and capable people have no choice but to acknowledge it no matter what or who they think you are?

It looks like Benjamin Thornton Montgomery. (1819 - 1877)

Benjamin was born in 1819 to an enslaved woman in Loudon County, VA. The first enslaver used Benjamin as a companion for his young son. I have to assume they were little boys together. This was not an unusual thing.


What was unusual was that the enslaver's son taught Benjamin how to read and write.

I could find no reason for this, but at some point, the first enslaver decided to, as Mark Twain called it in his book Puddin' Head Wilson, "sell Benjamin down the river".

These days we use the phrase - Selling someone down the river - as a way of saying that someone betrayed them.

Always Had Mixed Feelings About This

Back in the days of enslavement when the phrase came into the vernacular, it was used to denote an enslaved person who was sold from the northern states to the southern states because they were a problem. They would be sold to the cotton plantations as a punishment. The southern states were seen as a place where enslaved people would be treated inhumanely.

There is absolutely no information that I could find that explained why Benjamin was sold further south. I just thought I'd throw that lovely little piece of etymology in there.

Benjamin was sold to Joseph E. Davis, brother of Jefferson Davis - who was the first and only president of the Confederacy - in Natchez, MS in 1836.


I didn't know much about either Joseph or Jefferson Davis before I wrote this. I ended up having to research them to really get a good picture of why what happened next happened.

Joseph E. Davis

Before we go further, let me state that both Jefferson and Joseph - based on what they did - seem to have been morally upright, civic-minded citizens. They worked in their communities, they loved America, they held office, and they were saddened that the abolitionists made them have to withdraw from the Union.

 Joseph believed in the "Jeffersonian philosophy" about enslaved people. In summary, enslavement is wrong. Though negroes are a "lesser race" they should be eased out of enslavement.





Joseph Davis provided the enslaved people on his land with medical care and allowed them to sell their own products and keep the money so long as they paid him for the lost labor he experienced when they were working for themselves. He created a court on his lands so they could settle legal problems, provided them enough to eat, and trusted them to police themselves instead of hiring overseers. It was a community of enslaved people that worked the land and took care of his business while also taking care of themselves.

Benjamin Montgomery delighted and surprised Joseph Davis. When the enslaver discovered Benjamin could read, he encouraged him to use the library on Hurricane Plantation. 

Hurricane Plantation

The more Joseph knew of Benjamin, the more impressed he became. Eventually, he put Benjamin in charge of both his and Jefferson Davis' plantation which was right next door.

Benjamin was not only a reader, organizer, and leader, he learned about land surveying and management, taught himself how to create and read architectural designs, and learned about flood management. He was also mechanically minded. He repaired machines and did everything on the plantation that needed doing. He also ran the commissary where the enslaved people could sell their products and buy things on credit from Joseph Davis.

Okay, and now we get into the potential mythology part as I could find only one source for this story.

Apparently, Benjamin escaped from Hurricane Plantation at some point. He was captured and returned to Joseph. The two men were supposed to have had a long, involved conversation, about why Benjamin decided to run away and the end result was that they came to some kind of mutual agreement.

(I would like to interject at this point that I have written and deleted several paragraphs about how infuriating it was to realize that Joseph Davis had no idea that Montgomery might find being enslaved onerous even if the enslaver was beneficent! Still, I wasn't in that conversation, so I don't know how it went. Heck, I don't even know if it actually happened!)

Joseph allowed Benjamin to open his own store on Hurricane Plantation. Benjamin did business with everybody. The enslaved and the enslavers came to his mercantile. He opened a line of credit in his own name and bought and sold products from as far away as New Orleans. He became a wealthy man. He even paid Joseph Davis for his wife's labor so that she could stay home and raise the children.

Montgomery's Propeller

Because Benjamin was doing business on the Mississippi River, he noticed that sometimes the riverboats that brought his goods ran into shallow water and got stuck, or had to make long trips to avoid shallow areas. This delayed his shipments.

At this point in his life, it was generally accepted that nobody, black or white, was as skilled a mechanic as Benjamin Montgomery. He put his mind to the problem and came up with a solution.


He modified a propeller for steamboats that could adjust its angle and how it moved so that it could even maneuver in shallow water. It changed the steamboat industry on the Mississippi.

In 1858 Benjamin attempted to patent his upgrades. The United States patent office refused his patent. He was enslaved, and therefore not a citizen of the country, and therefore not allowed to hold a patent.

In years to come, both Jefferson and Joseph Davis attempted to patent the device under their own names, and both were denied because they were not the original inventors.

After the Civil War, Benjamin was a freedman. He returned to Hurricane Plantation and started farming it with other freedmen.

Joseph sold the plantation to Benjamin for 300,000 dollars.

Montgomery was potentially the first freedman to assume an elected office. In 1867, he was appointed as Justice of The Peace for Davis Bend, the name that was given to the settlement of freedmen living on the land that had been Joseph and Jefferson Davis' plantations.

Davis Bend

Benjamin wanted to turn it into a community for freedmen.

His dream did not come true. After he died,  his sons continued his legacy.

After the Civil War, Benjamin Montgomery was one of the wealthiest plantation owners in the southern United States.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!


Joseph Davis and Benjamin Montgomery became close friends in the years they spent together.

In fact, when Joseph Davis died, Benjamin oversaw having his body transported to Davis Bend and buried him with honor on Brierfield Plantation Cemetery which was part of Hurricane Plantation at the time.

So, here is to Benjamin Thornton Montgomery. He was an amazing man in his own right and on his own terms. He wasn't successful because somebody gave him a boost. He was successful because nobody stopped him.

Celebrate Black History!

Day 14 - Dr. Betty Wright Harris - Environmentalist, Explosives Expert, Girl Scout, and All Around Bad Ass Chemist

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You are watching an intense movie in the theatre. There is a bomb somewhere in the city, and nobody knows who planted it or where it is.

Some gorgeous actress who is the child/spouse/sister/lover or whatever of some actor that radiates mature father figure, public servant out of every pore is demanding that the police/government agency/rogue agent "I can find you" character locate the actress and the bomb in time.

You Know, Like Liam Neeson

The handsome, incredibly cut, neatly coiffed government agent or possibly the handsomely disheveled, sarcastic detective happens to pick up someone who looks suspicious.

His instincts are telling him something is wrong with this odd suspect. THEN...

Well, that is where Dr. Betty Wright Harris enters the scene.

Not literally, but she is there. Let me explain.

Betty Wright was born in 1940 in Louisiana by the Ouachita River. She was the seventh child out of a family of eleven kids. Her father was a tenant farmer who eventually earned enough to buy his own land. Her mother was an educator.

Betty was raised with a very strong work ethic and a firm belief that education is one of the most important things in the world.

She graduated from high school at sixteen and achieved her first degree at nineteen. She got her BS in Chemistry with a Minor in Mathematics from Southern University.

Then, because this life long learner needed more learning, she got a Master's degree in Chemistry from Atlanta University in Georgia. 

Giving back to the community was equally important in her life. Betty Wright Harris spent a decade teaching Chemistry at the college level.

Eventually, she needed to spend more time learning. She went to work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Her interest was caught by using chemistry to clean up industrial sites, nuclear disasters, and trying to figure out how to restore the environment.

Well, if you are going to go into a field where more research is needed, there is only one reasonable path. Learn some more so you can come at it with more knowledge. Time for a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of New Mexico.

When she'd learned all they could teach her, Dr. Harris started pioneering some science.

She is a badass chemist who has spent her life working to clean up the planet, recruit more women and minorities into the world of science, and has generally made the world a safer, cleaner place.

She designed the Girl Scout Badge in Chemistry. Of course she did.






Wait, I've forgotten something. Oh yes, back to the opening. What does Dr. Betty Wright Harris have to do with our culprit who has been collared, but has a deeper secret that he has not divulged?

Well, in the early 1980s, while becoming an internationally recognized expert in chemical explosives, Dr. Harris discovered that there was a way to detect the merest traces of a certain type of compound used in explosives on the ground, people, and clothing. It is called the TATB Spot Test. She patented it in 1984.

Dr. Wright's test can check for the presence of chemicals used in making nitroaromatic explosives.

Nitroaromatic explosives - like TNT - are extremely bad for the body. They are incredibly stable, need an igniter, and once they've exploded, they can be absorbed into your skin. They cause all sorts of health problems.

"Nitroaromatic compounds are hazardous to human health and are registered on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of priority pollutants for environmental remediation. Although the majority of these compounds are synthetic in nature, microorganisms in contaminated environments have rapidly adapted to their presence by evolving new biodegradation pathways that take advantage of them as sources of carbon, nitrogen, and energy." 

The TATB test can be used when the military or a commercial enterprise is called in to clean up a contaminated site. This test will let the organization know if there is a nitroaromatic compound present. This knowledge has saved many lives.

It can also detect nitroaromatics on someone if they have been handling them.

Back to our movie!

Our hunky police officer tests the culprit with a simple test that is done by running a piece of reactive paper over the suspect's hands discovers that he has been handling explosives and the movie builds to a climax as various characters are enjoined to find the bomb and the beautiful actress before everything goes up in smoke!

Dr. Betty Wright Harris

The movie? Far fetched.


The reality? Cleaning up contaminated sites, spot checks at airports or any other place there is a need to make sure someone hasn't been in contact with specific, dangerous explosives is a real application of this technology.

Thank you, Dr. Harris, for helping us clean up our messes, giving the Girl Soucts a cool badge, inspiring a generation of women and minorities to go into the sciences, and keeping those who have to go after the worst contamination on the planet as safe as they can possibly be!

Celebrate Black History!

Day 12 - Lloyd A. Hall - Sterile and Preserved

Quinn Chapel AME Church

I haven't covered many industrial chemists. There is a good reason for this - in the old days, when these geniuses were busy creating wild compounds, we didn't really understand how they interacted with the human body.

So much of industrial chemistry has turned out to be really bad for us. Still, there is lots of good that comes from their work.

Today we meet Lloyd August Hall. (1894 - 1971) He was born in Aurora, IL.

His grandmother ended up in Illinois at the age of sixteen after being smuggled out of the South on the Underground Railroad. His grandfather founded the Quinn Chaple AME church in 1837. 

I am pleased to say that Lloyd and I share an alma mater! I too went to Northwestern University!

Go NU

Lloyd got a BS in Chemistry. Then he went off to the University of Chicago for a Masters in Chemistry.

After he graduated, he had a phone interview with Western Electric. They hired him on the spot. When he turned up for work they discovered he was black and unhired him on the spot.

What this man could have done to our electrical systems. Sigh. Alas, it was not to be. No matter, it turned out to be a blessing for the future of food preservation and a cleaner, safer world.

Lloyd found work as a chemist in the industrial food industry.

Over the course of his long career, he was granted over 100 patents nationally and internationally for processes primarily in the food preservation of meats.

Two of the discoveries he made revolutionized several different industries.

He created a chemical process to process meat that turned out to kill microbes but proved to be a carcinogen. I saw nothing that said they marketed it to people, but the company did realize they could not put it on meat. So, they marketed to the medical industry to sterilize their instruments. They still use it today.

Sterile!

The second patent that made a huge difference was the discovery of an Ethylene Oxide gas process that was used to sterilize spices.

Up until Dr. Hall tested them, people believed that spices were a sterile, natural preservative. Through experimentation, he discovered that they were full of yeast, bacteria, spores, molds. and fungus. He developed a process using ethylene gas in a vacuum chamber to sterilize the spices. This process worked so well, it was not only adopted by the entire food industry, it is still used in the sterilization of medicines and cosmetics.

So, Dr. Lloyd August Hall -

A chemist who gave us clean food, drugs, medicines, and surgical equipment.

Not a bad life's work!

Celebrate Black History!

Day 11 - Thomas L. Jennings - The Dry Clean King

Old Clothes Press

One of the most terrifying things you can find in an object of clothing is that little tag that says, "Dry Clean Only".

You see that tag, and you know you have a finicky fabric on your hands. Well, at least you can get it clean. There was a time when you would just have to put up with the stains.


Thomas L. Jennings (1791 - 1859) was born a free man in New York, NY.






He was a successful businessman who owned and operated his own tailoring shop. He was married to an enslaved woman named Elizabeth. This was difficult because even though Thomas was free, legally, his children belonged to Elizabeth's enslaver.

One of the things Thomas noted was that customers were often dissatisfied with the cleaning methods of the day. They would complain about the stains that marred their nice outfits.

Dry Clean Only

Thomas began experimenting with chemicals that would clean clothes without damaging the fabric. In 1821 he filed a patent for the solution he created. He called the process he'd invented Dry Scouring.

He was the first African American to ever be granted a patent under the Patent Act of 1793.

When the government approved his patent, it caused quite a stir.

In order to get the patent, Jennings had to swear that he was an American Citizen. There were any number of people who were offended by this because it never occurred to them to think of black people as American Citizens. It was a huge admission by the government that many thought overstepped the law.

The patented formula for Dry Scouring was a huge success and it was adopted far and wide. With the proceeds from his invention, Thomas Jennings bought his wife and child out of enslavement.

He spent the rest of his life as an abolitionist.

in 1831, he was the secretary of the First Annual Convention of the People of Color in Philadelphia,, PA. 

NIHF

In 1855 he helped found the Legal Rights Association. This organization took on discrimination cases.

Jennings died in 1859, a year before the Civil War began, and six years before that most hated institution of government-sanctioned human chattel was finally abolished for good.


In 2018 Thomas Jennings was inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame for his patented formula for Dry Scouring - or as we call it today - Dry Cleaning!


Here's to Thomas Jennings!

A man who paved the way and fought until his last breath for the good of society.

Celebrate Black History!