Inventors Collection
Charles "Chuck" Harrison
Charles "Chuck" Harrison was an African American industrial engineer, designer who oversaw the 1958 redesign of the View-Master, the 3D viewer that had spent its first couple of decades principally positioned as a device for grown-ups to look at photos of vacation destinations. Harrison’s slicker, svelter, more colorful version—and a bevy of reels based on TV shows and cartoons—pivoted the gadget to the kid audience.

Frank Calvin Mann
Mr.Frank Calvin Mann, Hidden Genius The Black Engineer Behind Howard Hughes
He’s been ignored and cast aside much like new home hunters touring a property covered in wallpaper. Scholars have left him out of the history books and Hollywood couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge his existence either.

Frederick Jones
On this day in 1949 Frederick Jones invented the air conditioner. Patent No. 2475841.
Frederick McKinley Jones (May 17, 1893 – February 21, 1961), was an African-American inventor, entrepreneur, winner of the National Medal of Technology, and inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Henry Edwin Baker Jr.
Henry Edwin Baker Jr. (September 1, 1857 – April 27, 1928) was the third African American to enter the United States Naval Academy. He later served as an assistant patent examiner in the United States Patent Office, where he would chronicle the history of African American inventors.

Jerry Lawson
Whether you're an avid PlayStation fan, a 2000s-era Nintendo Wii kid, or any of the millions of other at-home consoles, you should lend your thanks to one man: Gerald "Jerry" Lawson, the mind behind the first home video gaming system, an eight-way digital joystick, and a pause menu, with interchangeable game cartridges.

Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta
The Banjo's Roots, Reconsidered
"My father was born with this instrument," Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta says. "This is part of our history."
Jatta, 55, is from Gambia, a member of the Jola people. He's holding an akonting: a three-stringed instrument with a long neck and a body made from a calabash gourd with a goat skin stretched over it.

Lloyd Noel Ferguson
Lloyd Noel Ferguson was an African American chemist, inventor, author and educator. Ferguson is the author of seven chemistry textbooks and more than 50 research papers. His research included work on organic chemistry, the relation between structure and function in biochemistry, chemotherapy treatments for cancer, and the chemical basis for the human sense of taste.

Sarah Marshall Boone (Boon)
Sarah Marshall Boone (Boon) was an American inventor who on April 26, 1892, obtained United States patent number 473,563] for her improvements to the ironing board. Boone's ironing board was designed to improve the quality of ironing sleeves and the bodies of women's garments.
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Stephen, an enslaved Black man
North Carolina, 1839, An enslaved Black man named Stephen discovered the process which created the “bright leaf” yellow variety of tobacco.
Stephen was enslaved on the farm of slaver Abisha Slade near the Virginia border in Caswell County, North Carolina. He worked as a blacksmith on the Slade farm.

Windser E. Alexander
Winser E. Alexander received patent number 3,541,333 for his System for Enhancing Fine Detail in Thermal Photographs. His invention provides a device and thermal enhancement method that detects, discriminates, and more effectively displays differences in infrared radiation, thus resulting in increased resolution and an increase in the effective dynamic range of the infrared observation system.
















