As our nation observes the Juneteenth holiday and the 1865 emancipation of the last remaining enslaved people of African descent in the US,  their many contributions to the textile and fashion industries are celebrated as well. To join in the commemoration, here are a few such African-American inventors who as a result of their creative visions and tenacious Spirits, have made our lives as dress makers and textile artisans just a little bit easier.

Inventor: Sarah Boone

Invention: Ironing Board

Patent Number: 473653

Patent Date: 4/26/1892

SARAH BOONE was born as Sarah Marshall in 1832.  At the age of fifteen she married a man by the name of James Boone. The couple had eight children together. Soon the family relocated to New Haven, Connecticut where Sarah began her career as a dressmaker.  But Sarah was a creative and frustrated by the limitations the current board between two chairs offered when it came down to pressing her wares. She wanted to design something that was easier for women to iron not only the body, but the sleeves of their dresses on. She came up with the idea of an ironing board made of a narrow wooden board that had collapsible legs and a padded cover. A board less cumbersome to use and convenient to fold away. On April 26th, 1892 Mrs Boone became the first African-American inventor to receive a patent for her sophisticated invention, and though never duly recognized for her work or influence on today’s ironing board, her ironing board became a precursor still for the more modern versions we have today. Though Sarah would only live another eight years after receiving her acknowledgment, she would go on to become a household name for those who knew of her invention.

 

 

Inventor: Ellen Eglin

Invention: Mechanical Clothes Wringer

Patent Number: N/A

Patent Date: 1800’s

 

ELLEN EGLIN was an African-American inventor born in Washington, DC in 1849. She grew up to make her living as a housekeeper and government clerk. But somewhere in the later 1800’s, she invented a special type of clothes-wringer which resembled a machine that had two rollers in a frame connected to a crank. Clothes would be fed in between theses two rollers and as the crank was turned, the clothes would have the water pressed out of them. This invention came at a time when there were not a lot of ways to wash clothes other than with your hands. Therefore, this was seen as an amazing invention and concept. However, Eglin decided to sell her patent to a ‘non-melanated individual’ interested in manufacturing the product.  She was quoted as saying “You know I am black and if it was known that a Negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer anyway. I was afraid in having it introduced into the market for that reason.” The buyer went on to reap considerable financial awards as a result.

 

Inventor: George Washington Carver

Inventions: Cosmetics and fabric paints/stains

Patent Numbers: #1522176, #1541478,  #1632365

Patent Dates:  January 6, 1925,  June 9, 1925 and June 14, 1927

GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER was born in 1864 as a slave in Missouri. A somewhat feeble child, young George was not able to work in the fields, but was able to assist in the herbal garden cultivated by his slave master’s wife. He became fascinated by plants and was soon experimenting with natural pesticides and soil conditioners, so much so that soon local farmers began calling George ‘The Plant Doctor’, as he was able to tell them how to improve the health of their garden plants.

Because George was also taught how to read, at about 13 he left the farm to attend school in Kansas. After he finished school, he worked several odd-n-end jobs and even attended Simpson College before taking up Botany at Iowa State where he became the first African American student to earn a BS degree.

From there, George worked as Director of the Iowa State Experimental Station and before long became well known as a leading agricultural scientist. His work caught the attention of Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T Washington, where George accepted a position that offered him the opportunity to educate and empower disenfranchised farmers from the South.
Among his teachings and inventions shared, the following offered the most profound and lasting impressions…the idea of crop rotation, the invention of the  Jessup Wagon,  a patent for ‘producing paints and stains’,  and over 300 bi-products of peanuts including cosmetics and laundry detergent.

Upon his death on January 5 1943 though, the majority of his inventions didn’t really pay off for Carver.  Many of the products never caught on commercially. If they did, he didn’t really benefit from them because he didn’t patent them. His goal was to share his knowledge to help poor Southerners, not to become rich. As a result, he only patented three items. Despite this, Washington became famous enough to have President Roosevelt dedicate a monument to him, his face appear on stamps and coins,  and become founder of the George Washington Carver Institute for Agriculture at Tuskegee. To this day George is remembered as one of America’s more innovate yet practical thinkers.

 

Inventor: Julia Terry Hammonds

Invention: Apparatus for Holding Yarn Skeins

Patent Number: #572985

Patent Date: 12/15/1896

Over two-hundred years ago, the US Patent Office issued patent number #572,985 to Julia Terry Hammonds, an African American from Lebanon, IL. As she wrote in her patent application, her invention “was especially adapted for ladies who use yarn, silk, cotton, and other light materials for knitting and crocheting and does away with the necessity of having some one to assist with holding while winding.”