The African American National Biography Shines Light on Famous and Overlooked Black Historical Figures

The African American National Biography Shines Light on Famous and Overlooked Black Historical Figures

By Bob Thompson
Washington Post

January 28, 2008

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- "Ever heard of Ted Rhodes? There he is, right before Condoleezza Rice."

Harvard historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is paging through the index to the eight-volume African American National Biography. She co-edited this massive new biographical treasure chest -- to be published next month by Oxford University Press -- with her Harvard colleague Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr.

Higginbotham is trying to underscore how many fascinating lives the biography will help rescue from obscurity: people such as Rhodes, a black professional golfer who paved the way for Tiger Woods.

"Valaida Snow's interesting," Higginbotham says, mentioning a jazz singer who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp. "You know Major Taylor? He's a bicyclist. . . . Margaret Smith was a midwife; she delivered over 3,000 babies in Alabama. . . . "

Name after name, life after life:

There's Cathay Williams, "cook, laundress, and Buffalo Soldier," who fled her slave master during the Civil War and disguised herself as a man to enlist in the postwar U.S. Army. There's John Carruthers Stanly, born a slave in North Carolina, who ended up owning 163 slaves himself.

And there's Rayford Logan, Higginbotham's old history professor at Howard University who helped create the Dictionary of American Negro Biography -- the best-known antecedent of the Gates-Higginbotham effort.

When it was published in 1982, Logan's dictionary was by far the most professional African American biography project ever completed. It had 626 entries. This one will have 4,100, and there are plans to add thousands more to the online version. Gates calls it "the most important recovery project in the history of African American studies."

Black history has long been important to Higginbotham, chairwoman of Harvard's Department of African and African American Studies. As a child in her parents' house in Washington, she met Logan and other pioneers of the field such as Carter Woodson, whom her father, a school principal, helped out at the Assn. for the Study of Negro Life and History.

After Woodson's death in 1950, she says, her father drummed his friend's historical credo into her:

"We must refute the lies that the Negro has no past or that the Negro has no past worth respecting."

The African American National Biography was the brainchild of the entrepreneurial Gates. No one involved can quite imagine anyone else pulling it off.

Reached by phone in California, Gates credits his inspiration to two sources.

One was Yale historian John Blassingame, who introduced him to the outpouring of quirky black biographical dictionaries of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Largely efforts to refute the most damaging lie of all about black people -- that they were intellectually inferior to whites -- these works tended toward hagiography but preserved many names that might otherwise have been lost.

The other inspiration, Gates says, was one of his heroes, "the smartest black intellectual in the first half of the 19th century." James McCune Smith was the first professionally trained black physician in the United States, the nation's first black candidate for political office and an influential abolitionist. Seven years ago, Gates looked for Smith in the premier American biographical dictionary, Oxford's American National Biography.

He wasn't there. Nor were most of the names on a list of maybe 25 prominent blacks Higginbotham assembled after Gates told her of the gaps he was finding.

Gates called Casper Grathwohl, who headed Oxford's reference division, and told him he needed to publish a stand-alone African American reference work.

"Do you think you can fill it up?" Gates recalls Grathwohl asking.

Not a problem.

An initial database, compiled at the Gates-run W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, ran to more than 12,000 names. Many, brought to light by burgeoning research efforts in African American history over the last quarter century, remained virtually unknown outside the academy.

Gates and Higginbotham set out to turn that database into what Gates calls "the grandest history of the African American people ever written."

Members of the staff they assembled began work in 2002, based in the Du Bois Institute. By 2004, they had produced a handsome 600-entry volume called African American Lives that served as a kind of advertisement for the full biography. But soon after this, the editors began to fear that the larger project would never get done.

Indeed, Gates is a man who, asked what he's working on now, has trouble recalling the full list. His sabbatical project is "a book on race and the Enlightenment." Another book, "In Search of Our Roots," will be out in April. He's just gotten approval from Oxford University Press for a huge African biography project. There's a PBS show airing next month, the second to be based on African American Lives. Oh, and he's forgotten to mention "the big project I'm gearing up to do": an eight-hour PBS series on the history of the African American people -- "the whole sweep, from the slave trade to Barack Obama."

In short, Gates is hardly a typical academic. He is uncomfortable with the slower rhythms of university scholarship, and some academics, in turn, are uncomfortable with him.

"A lot of people working for Skip get a little freaked," says Kate Tuttle, a book editor and journalist whom Gates and Higginbotham brought in to jump-start the project. When Tuttle signed on in 2004, she says, the biography was mostly a Du Bois Institute production, with little input from the publisher, and there was a feeling among the staff "that the project was impossible." Her chief idea for retooling it was to get Oxford more involved.

A key decision, says Tuttle's Oxford counterpart, Anthony Aiello, was to reduce the responsibilities of the Du Bois staff by recruiting 17 credentialed "subject editors" -- for education, art, slavery, civil rights and so on. The subject editors approved biographical entries in their fields, to be written mainly by some 1,700 outside contributors.

Unknown figures from centuries past are hard to research; the living, meanwhile, offer their own challenges.

What do you do, for example, with sprinter Marion Jones, who had yet to admit to using steroids when her biography was written? Or with Barry Bonds? What about Condoleezza Rice and Colin L. Powell? Both were shoo-ins for inclusion, but both have had their legacies of achievement destabilized by the Iraq war. What happens when Deval Patrick suddenly becomes governor of Massachusetts?

The beauty of a biographical dictionary produced in 2008 is that it can be updated online. The print version can be ordered for $795. The online version is proceeding more slowly and won't include all 4,100 entries for nearly a year. It is part of a collection of online reference tools called the Oxford African American Studies Center, available by subscription.

Putting this and similar works online may resolve a question that the compilers of specialized biographical dictionaries are forever being asked: Aren't they, despite their good intentions, perpetuating a form of ghettoization?

Online, Gates explains, "you can have your cake and eat it too." Users will soon be able to search across all Oxford's reference tools without specifying race -- but they'll still be able to separate African American entries if they want to.

"I'm exhilarated," Gates says. If someone had enough time, it would be great "just to start with A and read to the end."

You won't catch him doing that himself, however. And it's not just because he's thinking ahead to his African biography project, which should daunt him. No. He's already lighting out for new territory.

"Oxford doesn't know it yet," Gates says cheerfully, "but I want to do blacks in Latin America and the Caribbean."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Original Source: http://www.afrigeneas.com/

Who really invented the light bulb?

Fascinating facts about Lewis Howard Latimer inventor of an improved process for manufacturing light bulb carbon filaments in 1881.

Louis Latimer received a patent for an improved process for manufacturing the carbon filaments in light bulbs. These improvements allowed for a reduction in time to produce and an increase in quality. During his life time he had worked with and for Alexander Bell, Hiram Maxim and Thomas Edison. Latimer was the only black member of an exclusive social group, the Edison Pioneers. THE STORY

Criteria; First practical.
Birth: September 4, 1848 in Chelsea, Massachusetts
Death: December 11, 1928 in New York, New York
Nationality: American

Invention: electric lighting improvements in 1881

Function: noun / electric light bulb carbon filament
Definition: An electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. Today's incandescent light bulbs use filaments made of tungsten rather than carbon,
Patent: 252,386 (US) issued January 17, 1882

Milestones:
1848 Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, and reared in Boston
1864 joins Navy as a cabin boy on the USS Massasoit
1865 joins Boston, Massachusetts based Crosby and Gould, patent solicitors, as office boy
1879 moves to Bridgeport, Connecticut to work as a draftsman
1880 joins United States Electric Lighting Co. as a draftsman working for Hiram Stevens Maxim
1880 230,309 Hiram Maxim 7/20 for Process of Manufacturing Carbon Conductors Latimer witnessed
1880 230,310 Hiram Maxim 7/20 for Electrical Lamp
1881 237,198 Hiram Maxim 2/1 for Electric Lamp (assigned to U.S.E.L.Co.) Latimer witnessed
1881 247,097 Lewis Latimer and Joseph V. Nichols 9/13 for Electric Lamp
1882 252,386 Lewis Latimer 1/17 for Process of Manufacturing Carbons (assigned to U.S.E.L.Co.)
1982 255,212 Lewis Latimer 3/21 for Globe Supporter for Electric Lamps (assigned to U.S.E.L.Co.)
1882 left U.S.E.L.Co to work for several companies in the electrical industry
1885 Latimer found stable employment with the Edison Electric Light Company of New York
1892 Edison Electric Light Company merged with Thomson-Houston to become General Electric
1896 Latimer joined the Board of Patent Control, a joint arrangement between GE and Westinghouse
1910 968,787 William S. Norton 8/30 for Lamp-Fixture (assigned 50% to Lewis Latimer)
1911 began work in the private consulting firm headed by Edwin Hammer and Elmer Schwarz.
1918 Lewis becomes a charter member of a rather exclusive social group: the Edison Pioneers
1922 Latimer retired when failing eyesight caused an end to his career as a draftsman
1928 Lewis Latimer died on December 11, in New York
CAPs: Latimer, Lewis Latimer, Lewis Howard Latimer, Joseph V. Nichols, Alexander Bell, Hiram Maxim, Thomas Edison, Edison Pioneers,
SIPs: carbon filament, light bulb, light bulb making machine, inventor, biography, profile, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts.

STORY:VED FROM THE GREAT IDEA FINDER. www.ideafinder.com
Lewis Howard Latimer, a pioneer in the development of the electric light bulb, was the only Black member of Thomas A. Edison's research team of noted scientists. While Edison invented the incandescent bulb, it was Latimer, a member of the Edison Pioneers, who developed and patented the process for manufacturing the carbon filaments.

Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, and reared in Boston. Latimer's parents, as runaway slaves in the 1830s, had been assisted by whites as well as blacks. Their case had galvanized the Boston abolitionist community to its first major political activity. Latimer and his brothers had enlisted in the military and served in the Civil War. At sixteen Latimer joined the Union navy as a cabin boy on the USS Massasoit. After an honorable discharge in 1865 Latimer returned to Boston.
In his early career in Boston, Latimer was surrounded by technological communities that subscribed to the American ideal that any poor boy could make his fame and fortune through invention and innovation. The Union victory in the Civil War seemed to open the way for African Americans to participate fully in the American dream, and Latimer set his course accordingly.

Skills he had developed in mechanical drawing landed him a position with Crosby and Gould, patent solicitors. While with the company he advance to a chief draftsman and soon began working on his own inventions.While working at the Boston firm, Latimer met Alexander Graham Bell who hired him to draw the plans for a new invention, the telephone. Latimer's detailed descriptions of the geographic proximity of his office to the place where Bell was teaching, and of meeting with Bell add credibility to his claim, although no supporting evidence has been found in either the Bell family papers or the patent applications themselves.

His first patent (US 147,363), approved on February 10, 1874, was for a "water closet for railway cars."
Reading the application, a modern observer would probably agree that Latimer's "closed-bottom hopper" would have been preferable to the "open-bottom hopper" in use at the time. Given the superiority of the new design, and Latimer's own ambitions, it would have been exceedingly strange if Latimer and his colleague had indeed made no effort to market their new device. However, there is no record of any such attempt, and Latimer does not mention it in his autobiographical reminiscences.

After leaving Boston in 1879, Latimer arrived in Bridgeport, Connecticut shortly after his thirty-first birthday. He immediately set about making himself useful in the technical community of this busy seaport. In 1880 a combination of circumstances led him into the young electrical utility industry as an employee of Hiram Stevens Maxim, then chief engineer at the United States Electric Lighting Company. Within a week Lewis was installed in Mr. Maxim's office busily following his vocation of mechanical draughtsman, and acquainting himself with every branch of electric incandescent light construction and operation.

When the company moved to Brooklyn in 1880, Latimer moved with it and continued to diversify his achievements. In addition to his desk work and shop work, he went out into the field assisting in arc and incandescent installations of Maxim equipment in New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. In his logbook, he later recalled:

The following year Latimer and fellow inventor Joseph V. Nichols received a patent for their invention of the first incandescent light bulb with carbon filament. Prior to this breakthrough, filaments had been made from paper.

Of the numerous inventions Latimer made during his employment with U.S. Electric, three were patented: a new support for arc lights, an improvement to Maxim's method of manufacturing filaments for incandescent bulbs, and a new way to attach the carbonized filament to the platinum wires that brought electricity into the bulb from the base. In addition, Latimer's unpatented inventions improved designs for virtually all the other equipment and steps involved in the lampmaking process: the oven that baked the filaments; the preparation of phosphoric anhydride (a chemical used for drying the inert gas that filled the bulb and prolonged the filament life); glassblowing equipment to produce bulbs; and a new socket and switch.

His last assignment for U.S. Electric Lighting was in London, to advise the English on setting up a lamp factory. He arrived New Year's Day of January 1882. By this time, his mentor Maxim was only minimally associated with the electric business.

While in London Latimer began drawings for improvement in elevators. Although the elevator improvement was never patented, Latimer continued to work on it. As late as 1898, Latimer was actively bringing his elevator work to the attention of the Westinghouse, General Electric, and Otis Elevator companies. None of these companies were inclined to pursue the matter. The elevator stands, however, as symbol and evidence of Latimer's continuing pursuit of the American dream of upward mobility via invention.

Although Maxim did meet at least once with Latimer in London, his time and interest were increasingly absorbed in developing the machine gun which brought him his greatest fame. Latimer returned to New York later in 1882, but Maxim stayed in London for many years.

When Latimer returned to the United States late in 1882, the U.S. Electric Light Company had undergone several corporate changes. Maxim was no longer associated with the company, and Latimer found he had no place in the new organization. There is considerable conflicting evidence regarding the dates and firms of Latimer's employment for the next few years. The names of the Weston Company, Olmstead Electric Co., Imperial Electric Light Co., Mather Electric Co., and Acme Electric Light Co. all appear in various biographical and autobiographical accounts prepared more than a decade later. Drawings prepared by Latimer for C. G. Perkins at the Imperial Electric Light Co. during 1884 and 1885 are in the Smithsonian's collection.

About 1885, Latimer found stable employment with the Edison Electric Light Company of New York (parent company of all the Edison electric utility companies) and related or successor firms. He achieved a respected professional position on the basis of his patent expertise, his encyclopedic knowledge of lamp design and manufacturing, his drafting skills, and his creative intelligence.

He entered the Engineering Department of the Edison Electric Light Company and about 1889 was transferred to the Legal Department. He became Edison's patent investigator and expert witness in cases against persons trying to benefit from Edison's inventions without legal permission.

Edison encouraged Latimer to write the book, Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System. Published in 1890, it was extremely popular as it explained how an incandescent lamp produces light in an easy-to-understand manner.

When the Edison General Electric Company merged with Thomson-Houston in 1892, Latimer continued to serve in the Legal Department of the newly formed General Electric Company. (After a bitter struggle, Edison's name was dropped, and Edison himself had no more involvement with the company beyond defending his patents.) About 1896, Latimer joined the Board of Patent Control, a joint arrangement between General Electric and the Westinghouse Company,

On several occasions Latimer testified regarding his observations while working for Edison's competitors. Since Latimer had worked with or been employed by most of the men who challenged Edison's patents, his testimony as to what was going on in their shops was valuable to the Edison cause. One of the biographical sketches, apparently prepared as a letter of reference, states that while in the Legal Department of "the Edison Company . . . he made drawings for Court exhibits, had charge of the library, inspected infringing plants in various parts of the country, and testified as to facts in a number of cases, without materially encouraging the opposing counsel. He also did considerable searching for which his previous experience, and a moderate knowledge of French and German qualified him, rendering efficient service along these lines in the historical filament case and others of this period, involving basic patents.

While working for the Edison and General Electric companies, and thereafter, Latimer continued to invent at a much reduced rate (his last patent was granted in 1905 for a "Book Support"). About 1911, Latimer began work in the private consulting firm headed by Edwin Hammer and Elmer Schwarz.

In 1918, Latimer became a founding member of a rather exclusive social group: the Edison Pioneers. These men were business or technical affiliates, either of Edison's many companies, or of Edison himself. They had all played some part in the development of the electric utility industry; the organizational documents speak vaguely of carrying on the ideals and goals of Thomas Edison, but the primary purpose of the group was probably a mixture of social and professional networking.

In 1922 Latimer retired when failing eyesight caused an end to his career as a draftsman.
He continued to invent and teach his drafting skills until his death in 1928.

In addition to the Edison Pioneers, Latimer treasured his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, a symbol of his service in the Civil War. He became Adjutant of the George Huntsman post of the GAR in Flushing, New York. Latimer was also a founding member of the Flushing Unitarian Church. While these were integrated, predominantly European American organizations, Latimer was also active on behalf of African Americans both locally and nationally.

In his personal life, Latimer again worked within nineteenth-century American ideals. He maintained an advanced amateur's gentlemanly pursuit of music, art, and literature, and he promoted these cultural interests in his family. Latimer's literary efforts included poetry, prose, and plays. Throughout his life, Latimer pursued his objectives with quiet dignity. The testimony of his career, his colleagues, and his family affirms his high level of success.

Latimer's other patented inventions include such diverse items as the first water closet (i.e., toilet) for railroad cars (Patent No. 147,363 issued February 10, 1874), a forerunner of the air conditioner (Patent No.334,078 issued January 12, 1886), a locking rack for hats, coats, umbrellas, etc. ( Patent No. 557,076 issued March 24, 1896) and a book support (Patent No. 781,890 issued February 7, 1905).

Although today's light bulbs use filaments of tungsten, which lasts even longer than carbon, Latimer will always be remembered for making possible the widespread use of electric light.

A Journey into 366 Days of Black History 2008 Calendar

Source: A Journey into 366 Days of Black History 2008 Calendar

Harlem Renaissance

Purchase Here: It's A Black Thang

Bill Pickett

Famous Cowboys . . .

Bill Pickett holding a cow by biting its lip. This technique was invented by Bill Pickett and is known as bulldogging.

William (Will, Bill) Pickett was a legendary cowboy from Taylor, Texas of black and Indian descent. He was born December 5, 1870, at the Jenks-Branch community on the Travis County line. He died April 2, 1932, near Ponca City, Oklahoma.

From 1905 to 1931, the Miller brothers' 101 Ranch Wild West Show was one of the great shows in the tradition begun by William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody in 1883. The 101 Ranch Show introduced bulldogging (steer wrestling), an exciting rodeo event invented by Bill Pickett, one of the show's stars.

Riding his horse, Spradley, Pickett came alongside a Longhorn steer, dropped to the steer's head, twisted its head toward the sky, and bit its upper lip to get full control. Cowdogs of the Bulldog breed were known to bite the lips of cattle to subdue them. That's how Pickett's technique got the name "bulldogging." As the event became more popular among rodeo cowboys, the lip biting became increasingly less popular until it disappeared from steer wrestling altogether. Bill Pickett, however, became an immortal rodeo cowboy, and his fame has grown since his death.

He died in 1932 as a result of injuries received from working horses at the 101 Ranch. His grave is on what is left of the 101 Ranch property near Ponca City, Oklahoma. Pickett was inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1972 for his contribution to the sport.

Bill Pickett was the second of thirteen children born to Thomas Jefferson and Mary Virginia Elizabeth (Gilbert) Pickett, both of whom were former slaves. He began his career as a cowboy after completing the fifth grade. Bill soon began giving exhibitions of his roping, riding and bulldogging skills, passing a hat for donations.

By 1888, his family had moved to Taylor, Texas, and Bill performed in the town's first fair that year. He and his brothers started a horse-breaking business in Taylor, and Bill was a member of the national guard and a deacon of the Baptist church. In December 1890, Bill married Maggie Turner.

Known by the nicknames "The Dusky Demon" and "The Bull-Dogger," Pickett gave exhibitions in Texas and throughout the West. His performance in 1904 at the Cheyenne Frontier Days (America's best-known rodeo) was considered extraordinary and spectacular. He signed on with the 101 Ranch show in 1905, becoming a full-time ranch employee in 1907. The next year, he moved his wife and children to Oklahoma.

He later performed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, and England, and became the first black cowboy movie star. Had he not been banned from competing with white rodeo contestants, Pickett might have become one of the greatest record-setters in his sport. He was often identified as an Indian, or some other ethnic background other than black, to be allowed to compete.

Bill Pickett died April 2, 1932, after being kicked in the head by a horse. Famed humorist Will Rogers announced the funeral of his friend on his radio show. In 1989, years after being honored by the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, Pickett was inducted into the Prorodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. A 1994 U.S. postage stamp meant to honor Pickett accidentally showed one of his brothers.

Source: http://blackcowboys.com/

Black Ball : The Negro Baseball Leagues 2008 Wall Calendar

In the early days of professional baseball, officially erected obstacles and “gentlemen’s agreements” excluded black ballplayers from the major leagues. More than fifty years would pass before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. But racism didn’t keep black athletes off the field altogether: The first enduring all-black league formed in 1920, and franchises soon popped up across the United States. This calendar celebrates the Negro Leagues’ players and teams in rare photographs, concise biographies, stats, key dates, and memorable quotations. Partial proceeds go to support assistance organizations for former
Purchase Here: pomegranate.com

Ernest Just

Ernest Everett Just was a true scholar. He sought to find "truth" using scientific methods and inquiry. Although Dr. Just was bold enough to challenge the theories of leading biologists of the 19th and 20th centuries, he was humble and unassuming. Dr. Just was passionately driven to understand the world of the cell. His tenacity and motivation led him to add to our understanding of the process of artificial parthenogenesis and the physiology of cell development.

Dr. Just was born August 14, 1883 in Charleston, South Carolina. At an early age, he demonstrated a gift for academic research. For example, in 1907, he was the only person to graduate magna cum laude from Dartmouth College with a degree in zoology, special honors in botany and history, and honors in sociology.

On November 17, 1911, Just assisted three Howard students (Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper, and Frank Coleman), in establishing the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. The name Omega Psi Phi was derived from a Greek phrase meaning "friendship is essential to the soul", and became the fraternity's motto. Manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift were adopted as Omega's cardinal principles.

Immediately after graduation, Dr. Just taught at Howard University where he was appointed head of the Department of Zoology in 1912. At Howard, he also served as a professor in the medical school and head of the Department of Physiology until his death. The first Spingarn Medal was awarded to the reluctant and modest Just by the NAACP in 1915 for his accomplishments as a pure scientist. In 1916, Dr. Just gradutated magna cum laude from University of Chicago receiving his doctorate in experimental embryology.

Dr. Just received international acclaim for work he completed during the summers from 1909 to 1930 at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. At MBL, he conducted thousands of experiments studying the fertilization of the marine mammal cell. In 1922, he successfully challenged Jaacque Loeb's theory of artificial parthenogenesis, pushing the envelope. Using his research conducted at Wood's Hole, he published his first book entitled, Basic Methods for Experiments on Eggs of Marine Mammals.

Although Dr. Just was considered a leader and authority for his work with cell development, as an African American, he experienced racism and prejudice. For this reason, Dr. Just decided to study in Europe in 1930. It was in Europe that he published his second book, The Biology of the Cell Surface. While in Europe in 1938 he published a number of papers and lectured on the topic of cell cytoplasm. Dr. Just died October 27, 1941 in Washington D.C.