---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 8, 1993                   TAG: 9302090027
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: NF-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

---

CONTRIBUTIONS OF BLACK INVENTORS

When you think of an inventor, what image pops into your head? A bespectacled Benjamin Franklin? A wiry-haired Einstein?

If your mind reviews pages in your history book, those are indeed important names to recall.

But there are a number of black inventors whose names you probably haven't read about because they are not as well known.

Marylen Harmon, an African and African-American consultant in Roanoke, notes that years ago, many black inventors weren't recognized once their racial identity became known.

"The African-American inventor and scientist encountered innumerable [countless] legal and social obstacles," she says in a list of black inventors she compiled. Because of this, there is no way of knowing how many black inventors there really were.

Here is a list of common items followed by the name of their black inventors:

Potato chip, Hyram Thomas

Ice cream, Augustus Jackson (1832)

Player piano, J.H. and S.L. Dickinson

Mop holder, Thomas Stewart

Bottle, A.C. Richardson (1899)

Horseshoe, O.E. Brown, (1892)

Lawn mower, J.A. Burr (1899)

Umbrella, W.C. Carter (1885)

Golf tee, G.F. Grant (1899)

Egg beater, W. Johnson (1884)

Pencil sharpener, J.L. Love (1897)

Refrigerator, J. Standard (1893)

Mop, T.W. Stewart (1893)

An exhibit of these and other inventions is on display in the Roanoke City Library at 706 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke. It will be there through Friday.

For information, call 981-2955.

---