Black History Month Remix (Final Part)
As promised, here is the second and final part of this project.
Medicine:
Daniel Hale Williams (1856–1931) more info
Daniel Hale Williams was a trailblazing surgeon who performed one of the world’s first successful open heart surgeries in 1893.
At 20, Williams was an apprentice to the former surgeon general of Wisconsin. He then went to study medicine at the Chicago Medical College. Later, Williams would open the first black owned hospital and the first interracial hospital and nursing school, as he wanted a place where black and white doctors could study and a place where black nurses could be trained.
In 1894, Williams became the Chief Surgeon of Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington D.C., one of the highest positions for African Americans at the time and in 1895, he created the National Medical Association for black medical professionals as they were not allowed entrance into the American Medical Association at the time.
Williams was the first African American inducted into the American College of Surgeons.
Invention: Dry Cleaning (early version)
Thomas Jennings (1791–1856) more info
Thomas Jennings was the first African American to be granted a patent by the United States.
He received this patent for his “dry scouring” technique which served as the precursor to dry cleaning.
Jennings began as a tailor by trade, working in his own tailoring and cleaning business. He discovered a method to use solvents to clean his clothing after constant cleaning advice requests from his customers. He patented this method and, with the money he earned, bought his family out of slavery. The rest of the money he earned, he would spend on abolitionist efforts.
As Jennings was a free man, he gained exclusive rights over his patent, even though there was still significant controversy around this acquisition. In 1861, Congress would extend patent rights to slaves as well.
Fashion:
Zelda Valdes (1905–2001) more info more info
Zelda Valdes was a fashion designer who was one of the original designers of the Playboy Bunny Costume, a stylist to the stars, and a costume designer for the Dance Theater of Harlem.
Valdes began her career working in New York as a tailor. She went on to open her own boutique in Manhattan in 1948. In the 1950s, she moved this boutique to midtown and gained attention and momentum, getting to style famous celebrities like Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Eartha Kitt.
In 1970, Valdes was asked by the famed African American dancer and choreographer, Arthur Mitchell, to design costumes for the Dance Theater of Harlem. Valdes produced designs for over 82 of their productions over the next three decades.
Ophthalmology:
Dr. Patricia E. Bath (1942-) more info
Patricia Bath is an ophthalmologist, laser scientist, and inventor whose almost endless list of contributions to the field of ophthalmology include inventing a new device technique, the laserphaco probe, which is still used worldwide for cataract surgery, developing the field of community ophthalmology, cofounding the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, and being the first female chair of ophthalmology in the U.S.
Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bath earned a medical degree from Howard University, worked at Harlem Hopsital, completed a fellowship at Columbia University, completed training at New York University, and completed a fellowship in corneal transplantation and keratoprosthesis, the process of replacing a human cornea with an artificial one.
Bath later went to work for Charles R. Drew University and UCLA. In 1975, she became the first female faculty member in the Department of Opthamology at UCLA where she also created the university’s Ophaltmology Residency Training program. Bath was able to recover the eyesight of countless patients domestically and internationally during her lifetime and her work is still helping to save the eyesight of people worldwide.
Bath is the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent and holds four patents.
Photography:
James Presley Ball, Sr (1825–1904) more info
James Presley Ball was a famous photographer who photographed the likes of Charles Dickens, P.T. Barnum, and members of Ulysses S. Grant’s family.
He ran several businesses and his own gallery, which was considered one of the best daguerrotype galleries in the Midwest.
He traveled throughout the country and Europe, working, photographing, and displaying his works.
In 1992, three daguerrotypes by Ball were sold for $63,800 in Cincinnati by Swann Galleries, setting a record for the highest sale of daguerrotypes at auction at the time.
Athletics: Cycling
Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor (1878–1932) more info
Marshall Taylor was an American world champion in cycling. He won the world 1 mile cycling championship in 1899, broke at least 7 world records, and was a national and international champion in his field. Taylor was the first black world champion in cycling and the second black world champion of any sport.
Marshall began racing professionally at 18 and quickly began amassing victories. Though he was barred from racing in the American South, Taylor found slightly more hospitable ground abroad and earned victories and prize money throughout Europe, North America, and Australia, which would make him one of the wealthiest athletes at that time, regardless of race.
Taylor ended up retiring at the age of 32 due largely to the insults, attacks, and obstacles he faced both during and outside of competition because of his race.
Tech: Silicon Valley Pioneer
Roy L. Clay (1929-) more info
Roy L. Clay was a key figure in the development of Silicon Valley as a software engineer, then director of HP’s Research and Development group, and a computer technology startup investor for the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB).
Clay earned a math degree from St. Louis University in 1951. He initially worked as a school teacher because he found difficulty getting a job in the tech industry as a black man in the 1950s. He eventually began working as a programmer for a leading aircraft manufacturer at the time in 1956.
In 1958, he began working as a programmer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he programmed simulations to show how radiation particles would spread after a nuclear explosion. In 1962 he worked as a software engineer for Control Data Corporation and in 1965 he became the manager and lead developer at HP for their 2116A minicomputer, which was the first computer sold by the company and the second 16-bit computer to ever hit the world market.
Clay was the first Director of HP’s Research and Development computer group, one of the founding members of the company’s Computer Division, and briefly served as Interim General manager.
In 1971, Clay began work as a consultant in tech startup investments for KPCB. Three of the investments he made earned over 135 Billion dollars in valuation — Tandem Computer, Compaq, and Intel.
Clay was inducted in the Silicon Valley Engineering Council’s Hall of Fame in 2003.
Invention: Microphone Technologies
James West (1931-) more info
James West is an acoustic scientist and inventor who created the electret transducer technology which is used in almost 90% of all modern day microphones. He holds over 250 foreign and US patents for the design and production of microphones.
West earned a Bachelor’s in Physics from Temple University in 1957. After graduating, West went on to work for Bell Labs as an acoustic scientist. In 1962, while at Bell, West and fellow scientist, Gerhard M. Sessler, developed an inexpensive and compact microphone which was heavily dependent on the electret transducer technology which they had invented.
By 1968, the electret microphone was already being massed produced and this technology remains in the majority of microphones we use today, in computers, video recorders, tape recorders, etc.
West was the president-elect of the Acoustical Society of America, entered the National Academy of Engineering in 1997, and was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999.
Journalism, Publishing, Women’s Suffrage, Abolition:
Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823–1893) more info
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was a journalist, publisher, lawyer, activist, and teacher who was the first black female publisher in North America, the first female publisher in Canada, and the first female African American newspaper editor in North America. She was also the second African American to earn a law degree in the US after she returned to university following the Civil War and completed her degree in 1883.
Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Shadd Cary and her family moved to Canada. In Canada, she founded a racially integrated school and was the editor of an anti-slavery newspaper called The Provincial Freeman. She was controversial for advocating emigration to Canada.
Shadd Cary eventually returned to the US during the Civil War, where she served as a recruiting officer for soliders. Following the war, she went on to earn a law degree from Howard University and was an active suffragette, working along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as testifying before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives.
Chemistry:
Percy Julian (1899–1975) more info
Percy Julian was an incredibly influential chemist in American history who was the first to synthesize physostigmine, a chemical previously only available naturally through the Calabar bean, which is still used for the treatment of glaucoma and arthritis.
Julian also discovered how to synthesize progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols and laid the groundwork for the industrial production of cortisone.
Julian could not attend high school as the high schools in his area disallowed black students. He instead took high school level classes at DePauw University, graduating first in his class. He pursued a Masters in chemistry at Harvard University. When the university would not let him continue with a Ph.D., he went to the University of Vienna in Austria and earned a his Ph.D. in 1931.
He received more than 130 patents, was the first African American to achieve a Ph.D. in chemistry, the first African American chemist inductee into the National Academy of Science, and the second African American overall inducted into the Academy.
Law:
Charlotte E. Ray (1850–1911) more info
Charlotte E. Ray was the first African American female lawyer in the U.S. and also the first woman to argue a case in front of the US Supreme court of the District of Columbia.
While teaching at Howard University’s prep school, Ray applied and gained admission to the university’s School of Law. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1872 and became the first woman to graduate from the university’s law school. In the same year, she was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, one of the first woman to have been admitted at this time.
She was active in court and started her own practice, focusing on commercial law, though she had much difficulty finding clients due to prejudice of the time. Ray was also an active suffragist and attended the National Woman Suffrage Association’s New York convention in 1876.
Economics:
Andrew Brimmer (1926–2012) more info
Andrew Brimmer was an economist who served on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1966 to 1974, becoming the first African American to serve in that position.
Brimmer earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science from the University of Washington. In 1951, he earned a Fullbright Scholarship to study in India. After this, he went on to earn his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1957.
While completing his Ph.D. at Harvard, Brimmer worked for the Federal Reserve. It was during this time that Brimmer established the central bank of the Sudan. Upon graduation, Brimmer went to work as the assistant secretary of economic affairs in the U.S. Department of Commerce.
In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Brimmer to the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, where he would served an eight-year term.
Design:
Chuck Harrison (1931-) more info
Chuck Harrison is an industrial designer who designed more than 600 household products over 32 years with Sears, Roebuck & Company and most recognizably redesigned the View Master in 1958, designing the classic Model F View Master.
Harrison was originally turned down from Sears in 1965 because the company had a policy against hiring black people. He gained freelance positions with the company, however, and also worked with furniture and electronic companies to earn money. In 1962, Sears reconsidered Harrison, and he joined their 20 person product design and testing lab.
In the next three decades with Sears, Harrison went on to design a wide range of consumer products for the company, including the first ever plastic trash can in 1966, blenders, baby cribs, hedge clippers, portable hair dryers, stoves, sewing machines, lawn mowers, fondue pots, and much more.
During this time, Harrison rose in the ranks and eventually became the manager of the company’s entire design group, the first African American to be an executive in the company.
Visual Art:
Robert S. Duncanson (1821–1872) more info
Robert S. Duncanson was a successful landscape and portrait painter whose works, associated with the Hudson River School, earned international acclaim in the 1800s. He was touted as the “best landscape painter in the West.”
Duncanson taught himself fine art at a young age by copying prints and drawing still lifes and portraits. He began as an traveling artist to make ends meet, but his career began to take off in 1848 after Charles Avery, an abolitionist minister, commissioned him to paint Cliff Mine, Lake Superior. This commission connected him to a network of abolitionist clients which helped build his career.
He would go on to produce landscape paintings renowned throughout the world, beautifully capturing North American and European landscapes. Some of Duncanson’s most illustrious patrons included the Queen of England and the King of Sweden.
I hope these individuals (and many others who we rarely read about) serve as inspiration no matter what field you are in.
Hopefully one day, the history we are taught in school will represent and reflect much broader contributions from the wide variety of people who helped shape this country, not just for one month or week or day (depending on which group you belong to), but throughout the entire year.
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