Leonard C. Bailey (c. 1825 - September 1, 1918) was an African-American entrepreneur, inventor, and banker. He founded one of the first African-American banks in the United States.
Bailey was born in about 1825 to a free African-American family. [1] Growing up in poverty, Bailey worked as a barber and built up a chain of barbershops in Washington, D.C. [2]
Bailey invented and received patents for a series of devices, many designed for military or government use. These included a collapsible, folding bed designed for easy storage and portability, [3] [4] an innovation adopted by the U.S. military; [1] a rapid mail-stamping machine used by the U.S. Postal Service; [1] a device to shunt trains to different tracks; and a hernia truss adopted into wide use by the U.S. Army Medical Board. Bailey had to escape from a military camp after there was an attempt to capture him as a slave while he was dropping off his inventions. [5] [6] [2] These inventions provided him with a sizable income.
Bailey helped establish the Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C., one of the first African-American owned banks in the U.S. During the Panic of 1893, the bank maintained its solvency by obtaining a personal loan from a national bank. [2]
Bailey was a member of the first mixed-race jury in Washington, D.C., which found Millie Gaines not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. [6] He served as a member of the board of directors of the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth where a residence hall was named after him. [7]
Bailey died on September 1, 1918, of a sudden illness. He was buried in what is now known as the National Harmony Memorial Park in Largo, Maryland. [6]
William Thornton was an American physician, inventor, painter and architect who designed the United States Capitol. He also served as the first Architect of the Capitol and first Superintendent of the United States Patent Office.
Lee de Forest was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first practical electronic amplifier, the three-element "Audion" triode vacuum tube in 1906. This helped start the Electronic Age, and enabled the development of the electronic oscillator. These made radio broadcasting and long distance telephone lines possible, and led to the development of talking motion pictures, among countless other applications.
The year 1899 in science involved some significant events, listed below.
Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him. Although Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously, Bell's telephone patent was upheld in numerous court decisions.
Charles Sumner Tainter was an American scientific instrument maker, engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexander's father-in-law Gardiner Hubbard, and for his significant improvements to Thomas Edison's phonograph, resulting in the Graphophone, one version of which was the first Dictaphone.
Luther George Simjian was an Armenian-American inventor and entrepreneur. A prolific and professional inventor, he held over 200 patents, mostly related to optics and electronics. His most significant inventions were a pioneering flight simulator, arguably the first ATM and improvement to the teleprompter.
Thomas Blanchard was an American inventor who lived much of his life in Springfield, Massachusetts, where in 1819, he pioneered the assembly line style of mass production in America, and also invented the first machining lathe for interchangeable parts. Blanchard worked, for much of his career, with the Springfield Armory. In 1825, Blanchard also invented America's first car, which he called a "horseless carriage," powered by steam. During Blanchard's lifetime, he was awarded over twenty-five patents for his creations.
Leonard Michael Greene was an American inventor and aerodynamics engineer who held more than 200 patents, many of which are aviation-related. He is most well known for his contributions to aviation technology, including his invention, the Aircraft Stall Warning device, which warns pilots when a deadly aerodynamic stall is imminent. To build the device, Greene established the Safe Flight Instrument Corporation in 1946.
Sarah Elisabeth Goode was an American entrepreneur and inventor. She was one of the first known African American women to receive a United States patent, which she received in 1885 for her cabinet bed.
Alexander Thomas Augusta was a surgeon, veteran of the American Civil War, and the first African-American professor of medicine in the United States. After gaining his medical education in Toronto, Canada West from 1850 to 1856, he set up a practice there. He returned to the United States shortly before the start of the American Civil War.
Blake v. City and County of San Francisco, 113 U.S. 679 (1885), was an appeal from a decree that dismissed a bill filed by the appellant to restrain the infringement by the appellees of reissued letters patent granted to the appellant as the assignee of original letters patent issued to Thomas H. Bailey. The original patent was dated February 9, 1864, and the reissue September 18, 1877. They were for "a new and improved valve for water cylinders of steam fire engines and other pump cylinders." The specification, which was substantially the same in both patents, stated that previous to the invention therein described, the only valve used to relieve the pressure upon fire hose to prevent them from bursting was one operated by hand. To obviate the defects of such a valve, the inventor applied at some point between the engine or pump and the hose nozzle a valve which opened automatically by the pressure in the hose or the pump cylinder, so as to discharge an additional stream and thereby relieve the pressure.
Anthony Pollok was an American patent attorney who, with Marcellus Bailey, helped prepare Alexander Graham Bell's patents for the telephone and related inventions.
A timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945) encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Progressive Era to the end of World War II, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Miriam Elizabeth Benjamin was an American schoolteacher and inventor. In 1888, she obtained a patent for the Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels, becoming the second African-American woman to receive a patent.
Ellen F. Eglin was an African-American inventor who invented a type of clothes wringer for washing machines.
Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was an American inventor most noted for her development of the adjustable sanitary belt. Kenner received five patents, which includes a carrier attachment for invalid walker and bathroom tissue dispenser.
Richard W. Thompson was a journalist and public servant in Indiana and Washington, D.C. He was at various times an editor or managing editor of the Indianapolis Leader, the Indianapolis World, the Indianapolis Freeman and the Washington D.C. Colored American. He was published as a general correspondent in The Colored American, The Washington Post, the Indianapolis Freeman, the Indianapolis World, Atlanta Age, Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, the Cincinnati Rostrum, the Charleston West Virginia Advocate, the Philadelphia Tribune and the Chicago Monitor. His longest-lasting relationship was with the Indianapolis Freeman. In 1896, the black paper, The Leavenworth Herald, edited by Blanche Ketene Bruce, called Thompson the "best newspaper correspondent on the colored press."
Mary P. Carpenter or Mary P.C. Hooper was an American inventor from Buffalo, New York credited with seventeen patents over her lifetime. She also founded two companies, the "Carpenter Sewing Machine Co." and the "Carpenter Straw Sewing Machine Co.".
Judy Woodford Reed was an African-American woman alive during the 1880s, whose only record is known from a US patent. Reed, from Washington, D.C., is considered the first African American woman to receive a US patent. Patent No. 305,474 for a "Dough Kneader and Roller" was granted September 23, 1884. The patent was for an improved design of existing rollers with dough mixing more evenly while being kept covered and protected.