Black Incentive Culture in Washington, DC

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

Currently, the scholarly work on African American inventors tends to focus on the individual effort to conceive of an idea, develop the concept, reduce it to practice, and then gain a defendable monopoly for that piece of intellectual property in the form of a patent. This work typically concentrates on the cultural and technological struggles that a black inventor had to overcome. This project, however, examines collaborative community relationships that fostered productive inventive work. This research expands the current study of African American inventors and provides a broader context from which understand the lived experiences of black inventors. Instead of studying African American inventors as individuals disconnected from other black inventors, this project will study the connections--social, cultural, and material--between African American inventors in Washington, DC. The researcher contends that at the turn of twentieth century a small, but active, group of black inventors in Washington, DC relied on each other, pooled resources, and used each other as sources of collaborative inspiration. The key member of this group was Henry E. Baker, an assistant examiner for the United States Patent Office. He provided an insider's perspective to the patenting process, thereby enabling a group of African American inventors to successfully navigate the United States Patent Office. This research will show that African American inventors in Washington, DC leveraged their collective knowledge and experience a powerful survival mechanism in a segregated society to create inventive collaborations that mirrored their African American social and fraternal organization on the day. This research will (1) describe why and how black inventors lives have been elevated to mythic black inventors, (3) explain the value of studying the collaborative work of black inventors, and (4) provide a research plan to uncover a black inventive community in Washington DC.