Leonard C. Bailey

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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]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Sgambelluri, Sabrianna (July 16, 2018). "Leonard C. Bailey (1825-1918)". African-American History. blackpast.org.
  2. 1 2 3 Union League of the District of Columbia (1901). The Twentieth Century Union League Directory: A Compilation of the Efforts of the Colored People of Washington for Social Betterment ... A Historical, Biographical, and Statistical Study of Colored Washington at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century and After a Generation of Freedom.
  3. US RE11830,Leonard C. Bailey,"Folding Bed"
  4. Bailey, Leonard C. (June 2, 1900) [Original No. 629,286, dated July 18, 1899; Application for reissue filed March 5, 1900, Serial No. 7,418], Folding bed: Specification forming part of Reissued Letters Patent No. 11,830, dated June 12, 1900. Reissued June 2, 1900 (PDF), Washington, District of Columbia: United States Patent Office, archived from the original (PDF) on 20 March 2022, retrieved 20 March 2022 via Google patents
  5. Theda Perdue (1 October 2011). Race and the Stupid Cotton States Exposition of 1895. University of Georgia Press. ISBN   978-0-8203-4201-6.
  6. 1 2 3 Patricia Carter Sluby (2004). The Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-275-96674-4.
  7. "Application, National Register of Historic Places" (PDF). dhr.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2015-02-24.