In this blog post we will highlight some of the Black inventors, developers and pioneers who play an important role in technological developments over the years, but are too often overlooked. As President Gerald Ford said in 1976 when he officially recognized Black History Month, we need to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” (7) Many people these days don’t realize how much technology we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for these Black founders and creators.

Lewis Latimer (1848 – 1928)

Lewis Latimer
Early Life

African American impact on telecommunications is documented as early as 1876, when Lewis Latimer—a draftsman, inventor, and author—worked closely with Alexander Graham Bell to patent the telephone.

However, before Latimer started working as an inventor, he encountered many difficulties during his childhood. Before Lewis was even born, his mother and father escaped from slavery in Virginia and fled to Chelsea, Massachusetts. When Latimer was 10, his mother decided to split the family after the a court case ruled that individual slaves needed to prove they had the consent of their owner in order to legally become free. This caused Lewis’s father, George Latimer, to flee for his family’s safety. He had nothing to prove he was free from enslavement. So, he fled in order to protect his family.

Lewis Latimer joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 15 in 1863. He was honorably discharged in 1865. At this point, he started working as an office boy with a patent law firm. His salary was only $3.00 per week. He learned how to use a set square, ruler, and other drafting tools during his employment, which would later lead him to help draft the drawings that Alexander Graham Bell used to patent the first telephone in 1876 (1). 

Inventions and Patents

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer, who by then had been promoted to a draftsman at the patent law firm. He was hired to draft up the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell’s telephone. In 1884, he was invited to work with Thomas Edison.

Latimer also received a patent for the “Electric Lamp“, an improved design for producing light using electricity, and another in 1882, for the “Process of Manufacturing Carbons“, an improved method for the production of carbon filaments for light bulbs. 

All in all, Latimer obtained seven patents for all of his work and designs, along with writing four published books. In school, we usually only learn about Alexander Graham Bell in history textbooks. It’s clear to see that without Latimer’s contributions, Bell’s work would lack the basic drawn-out designs of his invention. This could have possibly caused him to never create the finished product we now know as the telephone.

Granville T. Woods (1856 – 1910)

Granville T. Wood
Early Life

Another prominent innovator in the creation of the first telephone technology is Granville T. Woods. Woods, born to free African Americans, was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1856. He didn’t receive much schooling or education as a young man. In his early teen years, he took up a plethora of jobs. He was a railroad engineer, an engineer on a British ship, in a steel mill, and a railroad worker.

From 1876 to 1878, Woods lived in New York City. He took courses in engineering and electricity – a subject that he realized, early on, was the key to the future.

Woods held various engineering and industrial jobs before establishing a company to create electrical apparatus. Also known as “Black Edison,” he registered nearly 60 patents in his lifetime, including a telephone transmitter, a trolley wheel and the multiplex telegraph (2).

Inventions

Wood’s most important invention was the induction telegraph in 1887. This development allowed people to communicate by voice over telegraph wires. This was a step up from only being able to communicate via morse code, which not everyone knew. It ultimately helped to speed up important communications and, subsequently, prevented crucial errors such as train accidents. Woods was often overlooked in comparison to others developing new technologies at the time. This included Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, both of whom we all know about from history classes.

The patent for Woods’ induction telegraph was bought by Alexander Graham Bell, who is most commonly credited as the inventor of the telephone. Woods was essential to the telephone’s development. Woods was also challenged by Thomas Edison (the inventor credited with the invention of the lightbulb) who took legal action against Woods to claim that the patent should belong to him. 

James Edward West (1931 – present)

James Edward West

More than 90% of the microphones today, including those in phones and cameras, use technology co-invented by Dr. James E. West. The large majority of the microphones used in cellphones today can be credited to this genius inventor. With Gerhard M. Sessler, West created the Electroacoustic Transducer/Electret Microphone. These compact and cost effective microphones gained a patent in 1964. Since then, West has gone on to patent more than 40 inventions in the U.S. and many more internationally. They are mostly related to acoustics and electrical engineering. His total number of patents is more than 250.

In addition to his multiple contributions to acoustical science, West has been a devout advocate for greater diversity and inclusion in the fields of science and technology. While at Bell Laboratories, West co-founded the Association of Black Laboratory Employees (ABLE), an organization formed to “address placement and promotional concerns of Black Bell Laboratories employees.” (3)

Henry Sampson (1934 – 2015)

Henry Sampson

Henry Sampson is another groundbreaking innovator in the wireless industry. In 1967, he was the first African American in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering. He received this degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Using his degree in nuclear engineering, Henry patented the Gamma-Electric cell in the 1970s. This made it possible to send and receive audio signals wirelessly through radio waves. Without this revelation, we would not have the cellphone we know and love today. Additionally, the patent cites the cell’s function as a detector with self-power and construction cost advantages over previous detectors (4).

Sampson largely contributed to the present-day world of phones, and also won many awards in the industry. These include the United States Atomic Energy Commission Award for excellent service from the U.S. Naval Weapons Center from 1964 to 1967.

Jesse Russell (1948 – present)

Jesse Russell

Jesse E. Russell is another paramount figure who has played a fundamental role in the invention of modern cell phones. He has patented dozens of different innovations. This includes the base station technology that transmits radio wave signals to and from mobile devices. (5)

Russell was a top honor student at Tennessee State University in the School of Engineering. He became the first African American to be hired directly from a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) institution by AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1973, Russell obtained his Master of Electrical Engineering degree from Stanford University. He ended up working in the field of wireless communication for over 20 years.

Russell has helped shape the wireless communications industry through his leadership skills, and fresh perspectives for technological standards and new wireless service concepts. His innovations in wireless communication systems, architectures and technology related to radio access networks, end-user devices and in-building wireless communications systems have fundamentally changed the wireless communications industry. (5)

Furthermore, he pioneered the field of digital cellular communications in the 1980s through the use of high-power linear amplification and low bit-rate voice encoding technologies. He later received a patent in 1992 for his work in the area of digital cellular base station design. (5)

Marian R. Croak (1955 – present)

Marian R. Croak

Marian R. Croak is the inventor of Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP enables us to use our internet network for voice and multimedia communications. As long as you have an internet connection, you can make a call or video chat because of this technology. Many of us have been using this technology more frequently over the last year or two. This includes video conferencing and virtual meetings, so we know the impact it has had on the way we work and communicate.

Marian has had an impressive career in the technology industry. She has over 200 patents in her name, many of which are integral to the internet technologies we use daily. She was an advocate early on for making the switch from wired phone technologies to internet services, and she has been a pioneer and forward thinker throughout her career. Marian also pioneered the use of phone network services to enable the public to easily donate to humanitarian causes. Currently, Marian is working in research and development at Google. (6)

Today and every day, we are indebted to all of these innovators’ groundbreaking visions. They’ve all made great contributions to American connectivity and communications. The wireless industry would not be thriving the way it is today if it weren’t for these innovators. We may take all of these inventions for granted and hardly think twice when using our phones these days. It’s important to keep in mind where the technology came from and who got it all started for us. The world is a totally different place thanks to these creations. We owe a lot to the genius Black minds who constructed and manufactured them.

Sources:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Howard_Latimer#Early_life_and_family
  2. https://www.biography.com/inventor/granville-t-woods
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Edward_Maceo_West
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._Sampson
  5. https://connectednation.org/blog/2019/02/26/black-history-maker-in-technology-jesse-russell/
  6. https://digital-leaders.childnet.com/black-inventors-and-pioneers-who-have-influenced-the-way-we-use-the-internet-and-technology-today/
  7. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month