It was during black history month that I was astounded. I was curious and looked up patents held by black people.
I found the following:
a. The folding chair
b. the wrench
c. The Red cross was founded
d. the stop light
e. the first successful open heart surgery
f. the discovery and separation of plasma
g. the discovery of cortizone
h. the first successful separation of siamise twins
i. the man referred to in the coined phrase "the real macoy"
j. the person who did the actual patent drawings for Edison
k. the brushes on the street sweepers
This was just a small list that were patented by black people. I am sure the same is true for other cultures as it applies to americas growth. But knowing these things as a part of the regular history would add self esteem to black people in general.
Comments (13)
Adding this info because they were blacks that developed these patents is the wrong thing to do. What we need to do is to teach true history and have it include the significant events no matter what color the person's skin was. When I went to school, I learned about Indians as well as blacks...I knew peanut butter and other things were discoveries of George Washington Carver and of course we learned about the civil rights movement. School isn't supposed to "add self esteem" because of the color of your skin, it is supposed to teach people how to think--and that's where our kids are missing the boat. If we teach them to think, they'll have good self-esteem no matter what the color of their skin.
As long as the person is mentioned by name and given the credit that is due them for their ideas then color is irrelevant. The fact that someone has a good idea and makes use of it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the color of their skin or their ethnicity. When is America going to STOP denoting weather a person is white or black or hispanic or martian or Klingon for that matter? An American should be an American FIRST.
Have you seen a history book lately? Our "history" is already being slanted to rediculous lengths to reflect the new "progressive" (socialist, communist) ideaology. A little tired of history being re-written to push an agenda.
Here's the problem - those are lies. For instance:
- The Red Cross was not founded by a black person, but by Clara Barton.
- The traffic light was not invented by a black person (Garrett Morgan in 1923), but in reality, the first known traffic signal appeared in London in 1868 near the Houses of Parliament. Designed by JP Knight, it featured two semaphore arms and two gas lamps. The earliest electric traffic lights include Lester Wire's two-color version set up in Salt Lake City circa 1912, James Hoge's system (US patent #1,251,666) installed in Cleveland by the American Traffic Signal Company in 1914, and William Potts' 4-way red-yellow-green lights introduced in Detroit beginning in 1920. New York City traffic towers began flashing three-color signals also in 1920.
- The first heart surgery was not by a black person (Dr. Daniel Hale Williams in 1893), but in reality, Dr. Williams repaired a wound not in the heart muscle itself, but in the sac surrounding it, the pericardium. This operation was not the first of its type: Henry Dalton of St. Louis performed a nearly identical operation two years earlier, with the patient fully recovering. Decades before that, the Spaniard Francisco Romero carried out the first successful pericardial surgery of any type, incising the pericardium to drain fluid compressing the heart.
- The separation of blood plasma was not discovered by a black person (Charles Drew about 1940), but in reality, the possibility of using blood plasma for transfusion purposes was known at least since 1918, when English physician Gordon R. Ward suggested it in a medical journal. In the mid-1930s, John Elliott advanced the idea, emphasizing plasma's advantages in shelf life and donor-recipient compatibility, and in 1939 he and two colleagues reported having used stored plasma in 191 transfusions. (See historical notes on plasma use.) Charles Drew was not responsible for any breakthrough scientific or medical discovery; his main career achievement lay in supervising or co-supervising major programs for the collection and shipment of blood and plasma.
... to be continued.
continued ...
- The Real McCoy - Elijah McCoy supposedly revolutionized industry in 1872 by inventing the first device to automatically oil machinery. Not true. The phrase "Real McCoy" supposedly arose to distinguish Elijah's inventions from cheap imitations? Not true. The oil cup, which automatically delivers a steady trickle of lubricant to machine parts while the machine is running, predates McCoy's career; a description of one appears in the May 6, 1848 issue of Scientific American. The automatic "displacement lubricator" for steam engines was developed in 1860 by John Ramsbottom of England, and notably improved in 1862 by James Roscoe of the same country. The "hydrostatic" lubricator originated no later than 1871. Variants of the phrase Real McCoy appear in Scottish literature dating back to at least 1856 — well before Elijah McCoy could have been involved.
- The brush for the street sweeper was not invented by a black person (Charles Brooks 1896), but in reality, Brooks' patent was for a modified version of a common type of street sweeper cart that had LONG been known, WITH a rotary brush that swept refuse onto an elevator belt and into a trash bin. In the United States, street sweepers started being patented in the 1840s, and by 1900 the Patent Office had issued about 300 patents for such machines.
It's one thing to desire historical accuracy in history books, but it's an entirely different thing to fabricate history in the name of historical accuracy.
It would also be nice if our country wasn't biased towards its own inventors. A lot of inventions that Americans are given credit for, either explicitly or implicitly, were actually created by inventors in other countries.
History is be "revised" for our students. Some of it lies and not the truth (see it on the History channel,CSPAN, PBS, etc.).
Isn't this a bag of worms you might not want to happen now?
The idea is terrific, but the implementation plan is where this idea falls down. We don't need a commission, just people at the local school board level willing to tell text book publishers that they want the truth, the whole truth and not the current politicized version of the truth.
This is the problem with America today. We want to be equal but then we want to divide based on color. My family is a variety of colors; black, yellow, white, red ..... and I HATE it when we are defined by our color and not WHO we are.
This is why we are in the situation we are in now!!! HELLO... I cannot name the times that I was told that someone was voting for BO because he is BLACK and they wanted to be a part of HISTORY. WELL, they sure were a part of history; a president that is a liar, a theif, changing America from Capatilism into Facism.
He is not black anyway, he is black and white!!!!! Come on, do we want to be a country that defines people by their color???
The point is to reflect the books accurately, not based on what works for a particular culture and put this forth.
One person said is this a good time. It is the absolute perfect time.
I will not engage in if the patent information was correct, or if I put a piece I remember being supprised by. It doesn't change the point of the message, which is above. To reiterate - accurate history books, not what is there now!
e.g. Did anyone realize that the term cowboys was termed in the old west because it was black men tending cows and they were called boys. Thus the term cowboys.
vipcottagellc: How can you not be concerned about the patent info? It's public record, and if you can show the black invention is a myth via patent records, then isn't the truth more important than tickling some fancy? Including such black invention myths in the history books would MAKE them inaccurate. If you truly want accurate history books, then the last thing you should want is invention myths written into them.
Oh, and the "cowboy" term reference? - that's a myth too. The term cowboy has spanish origins. And blacks were rarely, if ever, used to tend the cattle in the American old west. Where are you getting your info from? You should probably ditch it as a source, as they are feeding you all sorts of fairy tales.
Of course I am concerned about the patent records. I just mean that I am not going to go back and check the specifics of the patent that is held at this point and then post it to this website.
Here I am interested in staying on point. And the point is that the history books should reflect accuracy. I was just using examples that were interesting discoveries in my travels. Ok so maybe bad examples or good examples, the point doesn't change.
vipcottagellc: Okay, I can understand your core point of needing accuracy in history books - and I agree. However, unfortunately most black history claims are fraudulent and end up being bad examples. I think using that as a premise for desiring accuracy in history books begins a fatally flawed discussion that cannot establish the point. But otherwise, in regard to the general need for accuracy in history books (a la the Civil War, WWII, etc.) I do agree.