Research Guides: Black Histories and Futures in STEM: 2025 Head's Display: Inventors and Innovators

Black Inventors and Innovators

Patent US315368A: Apparatus for transmission of messages by electricty, awarded to Granville T. Woods, 1885

This Black Histories and Futures Month the Head, Engineering and Science Library would like to highlight the achievements of Black inventors and innovators. We invite you to browse some of these titles held by the Queen's University Library.

Lucean Arthur Headen by Jill D. Snider
Publication Date: 2020
Born in North Carolina, Lucean Arthur Headen (1879-1957) grew up amid former slave artisans. Inspired by family tradesmen, he dreamed of becoming an inventor. Risking everything, he eventually earned eleven patents, most for innovative engine designs and anti-icing methods for aircraft.
Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation by Rayvon Fouché
Publication Date: 2003
Fouche provides a nuanced view of African American contributions to - and relationships with - technology during a period of rapid industrialization and mounting national attention to the inequities of a separate-but-equal social order.
George Washington Carver, scientist and symbol by Linda O. McMurry
Publication Date: 1982
An intimate and sensitive psychological portrait, a well informed intellectual sketch, and an unusually readable scientific treatise, this biography of Carver has a depth and a breadth of research rarely found in such studies.
Modern Marvels. George Washington Carver Tech by A&E Television Networks, LLC.
Publication Date: 2010
He introduced the lowly peanut to big business and changed the course of Southern agriculture. He turned soybeans into plastic and carved his place in history as one of the 20th century's greatest scientists. George Washington Carver was a slave set free with a microscope and a vision: this is his story.
Percy Julian: Forgotten Genius by Llewellyn Smith
Publication Date: 2007
A biography of Percy Lavon Julian, an African-American chemist, self-made millionaire, and humanitarian.

Explore some of these patents by Black inventors through the years

Arthur Headen Lucean (1879-1957): US2092454A Charge mixing and heating device and/or vaporizer for use in cylinders of internal combustion engines

Granville T. Woods (1856-1910): US509065A Electric Railway Conduit

Explore more patents via this list from the American Institute of Physics

National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees

Percy Julian, 1899-1975
Percy Lavon Julian synthesized physostigmine for treatment of glaucoma and cortisone for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. He is also noted for a fire-extinguishing foam for gasoline and oil fires.
Lewis Latimer, 1848-1928
Lewis Latimer invented a method for producing a more durable carbon filament, making incandescent lighting practical and affordable for consumers.
George Washington Carver
Agricultural chemist George Washington Carver developed crop-rotation methods for conserving nutrients in soil and discovered hundreds of new uses for crops such as the peanut and sweet potato.