Innovator Spotlight

Women’s History Month was declared by Congress in 1987. The National Women’s History Project requested that the week long celebration be expanded to a month. Since then each year the designation gets bi-partisan support from the House and Senate.

With only an elementary school education, Garrett A. Morgan moved from his childhood home in Kentucky to look for work in Ohio. Having worked as a sewing machine mechanic, he saved enough money to open his own sewing machine shop

  Lewis Latimer, the son of enslaved people who was born free in 1848, worked at a law firm in Massachusetts where he learned about patent drafting. Over time, Latimer became an exceptional inventor, even working alongside well-known inventors including

Marie Van Brittan Brown was born and raised in Queens, New York. Working as a nurse, her hours were not standard and living in a high-crime area made her want to feel safe, so she invented the first home security

Jo Anderson was born an enslaved person in 1808. Historians now credit him as a major contributor to the design and creation of the reaper along with his owner Robert McCormick. A revolutionary invention in American agriculture, the mechanical reaper

The first US patent was granted three months after President George Washington signed the Patent Act in 1790,. However, though critical to innovation, Black inventors, particularly those who were enslaved, typically were not able to patent their own inventions. Because