Black inventions debunked

The term “patent” is used frequently in the following refutations. There is a difference between inventing and then patenting something and patenting a variation of an invention. However when patenting a variation of some ventral invention, it should be noted as “a variation of…” as opposed to the actual invention. A patent for an elevator should not be coined “the invention of the elevator.” This list seems to confuse the two by claiming inventions that are either too broad or, in reality, just “improvements” of the time, of the original, and being mislabled as an invention.

Air conditioning. Pre electric models predate 1949 going as far back as the 2nd century of the Han Dynasty with inventor Ding Huan. First modern electric AC unit was invented by Will Carrier in 1902.

The almanac. Almanacs date back to ancient Babylonia predicting lunar events. Even in America, Nathaniel Ames published the first American Almanac in 1725.

Auto cut off switch. Granville T. Woods was born after the date you gave and died before the earliest patent was filed.

The auto fishing device. Patented, not invented. Inventor is unknown but the earliest recorded picture of a fishing reel was by Ma Yuan from Southern Song in 1195 in his picture “Angler on a Wintry Lake. Fishing reels first appeared in England around 1650 AD, and by the 1760s, London tackle shops were advertising multiplying or gear-retrieved reels. The first popular American fishing reel appeared in the U.S. around 1820. Origin believed to be Chinese.

Automatic gear shift. Wrong. The first automatic-transmission automobile to enter the market was designed by the Sturtevant brothers of Massachusetts in 1904. US Patent #766551 was the first of several patents on their gearshift mechanism. Automatic transmission technology continued to develop, spawning hundreds of patents and numerous experimental units; but because of cost, reliability issues and an initial lack of demand, several decades passed before vehicles with automatic transmission became common on the roads.

Biscuit cutter was a patent. People are far back as the Egyptians used molds to cook their foods.

Baby buggy or the stroller, was patented by that man, It was however invented by William Kent in 1733.

Bicycles were depicted on paper as far back as the 1400’s from a sketch said to be from 1493 and attributed to Gian Giacomo Caprotti, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci. German Baron Karl von Drais, a civil servant to the Grand Duke of Baden in Germany later in the early 1800 built a bike along with Comte Mede de Sivrac and Karl von Sauerbronn built primitive versions of the bicycle in 1791 and 1816 respectively.

Blood plasma. The possibility of using blood plasma for transfusion purposes was known at least since 1918, when English physician Gordon R. Ward suggested it in a medical journal. In the mid-1930s, John Elliott advanced the idea, emphasizing plasma’s advantages in shelf life and donor-recipient compatibility, and in 1939 he and two colleagues reported having used stored plasma in 191 transfusions. Charles Drew was not responsible for any breakthrough scientific or medical discovery; his main career achievement lay in supervising or co-supervising major programs for the collection and shipment of blood and plasma.

Cell phone. On July 6, 1971, Sampson and co-inventor George Miley received a patent on a “gamma electric cell” that converted a gamma ray input into an electrical output (Among the first to do that was Bernhard Gross, US patent #3122640, 1964). What, you ask, does gamma radiation have to do with cellular communications technology? The answer: nothing. Some pseudo-historian must have seen the words “electric” and “cell” and thought “cell phone.” The father of the cell phone is Martin Cooper who first demonstrated the technology in 1973.

Chamber Commode. If by this, you are referencing the refrigerator, then no. Oliver Evans proposed a mechanical refrigerator based on a vapor-compression cycle in 1805 and Jacob Perkins had a working machine built in 1834. Dr. John Gorrie created an air-cycle refrigeration system in about 1844, which he installed in a Florida hospital. In the 1850s Alexander Twining in the USA and James Harrison in Australia used mechanical refrigeration to produce ice on a commercial scale. Around the same time, the Carré brothers of France led the development of absorption refrigeration systems. Stanard’s patent describes not a refrigeration machine, but an old-fashioned icebox — an insulated cabinet into which ice is placed to cool the interior. As such, it was a “refrigerator” only in the old sense of the term, which included non-mechanical coolers. Elkins created a similarly low-tech cooler, acknowledging in his patent #221222 that “I am aware that chilling substances inclosed within a porous box or jar by wetting its outer surface is an old and well-known process.”

Clothes dryer. Another patent. First was built in 1799 by a Frenchman name Pochon. The first electric one was by brook stevens in the 1940’s. Many years earlier before the date you gave there were already over 300 US patents for such “clothes-driers” (Subject-Matter Index of Patents…1790 to 1873).

Curtain rod and support. One of those vague and broad ones. This is a a patent. Unless you actually believe people never hung cloth off of a horizontal stick that we already hung meat and leather off of before.

Door knobs and steps. Same as above. More patents. Got in on it before anyone else took claim in a universal things we all used for ages. Not an invention.

Dust pan was also a patent on an improved design of the old dust pans with no real origin. Another broad patent mistaken as an invention.

Egg beater. The hand-cranked egg beater with two inter-meshed, counter-rotating whisks was invented by Turner Williams of Providence, Rhode Island in 1870 (US Patent #103811). It was an improvement on earlier rotary egg beaters that had only one whisk by Ralph Collier who had a patent in 1856. This was followed by E.P. Griffith’s whisk patented in England in 1857. Another hand-turned rotary egg beater was patented by J.F. and E.P. Monroe in 1859 in the US. U.S. Patent 23,694 Their egg beater patent was one of the earliest bought up by the Dover Stamping Company, whose Dover egg beaters became a classic American brand. The Monroe design was also manufactured in England. In 1870, Turner Williams of Providence, R.I., invented another Dover egg beater model. U.S. Patent 103,811

Electric light bulb. Wrong. He patented an improved way to manufacture the filaments of a lightbulb. English chemist/physicist Joseph Swan experimented with a carbon-filament incandescent light all the way back in 1860, and by 1878 had developed a better design which he patented in Britain. On the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Edison developed a successful carbon-filament bulb, receiving a patent for it (#223898) in January 1880, before Lewis Latimer did any work in electric lighting. From 1880 onward, countless patents were issued for innovations in filament design and manufacture (Edison had over 50 of them). Neither of Latimer’s two filament-related patents in 1881 and 1882 were among them, nor did they make the light bulb last longer, nor is there reason to believe they were adopted outside Hiram Maxim’s company where Latimer worked at the time. (He was not hired by Edison’s company until 1884, primarily as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigations).

Elevator. Wrong. Steam-powered hoisting devices were used in England by 1800. Elisha Graves Otis’ 1853 “safety elevator” prevented the car from falling if the cable broke, and thus paved the way for the first commercial passenger elevator, installed in New York City’s Haughwout Department Store in 1857. The first electric elevator appeared in Mannheim, Germany in 1880, built by the German firm of Siemens and Halske. A self-closing shaft door was invented by J.W. Meaker in 1874 (“Improvement in Self-closing Hatchways,” US Patent No. 147,853). Manual elevators have been around for over a thousand years.

"Eye protector" Clearly a patent. This is way to broad of a term as well. Eye protection of various kinds have been around for ages, long before the patent by Johnson.

Fire escape. Wrong. Winters’ “fire escape” was a wagon-mounted ladder. The first such contraption patented in the US was the work of William P. Withey, 1840 (US patent #1599). The fire escape with a “lazy-tongs” type ladder, more similar to Winters’ patent, was pioneered by Hüttman and Kornelio in 1849 (US patent #6155). One of the first fire escapes of any type was invented in 18th-century England: In 1784, Daniel Maseres, of England, invented a machine called a fire escape, which, being fastened to the window, would enable anyone to descend to the street without injury.

Fire extinguisher. Wrong. In 1813, British army captain George Manby created the first known portable fire extinguisher: a two-foot-tall copper cylinder that held 3 gallons of water and used compressed air as a propellant. One of the earliest extinguishers to use a chemical extinguishing agent, and not just water, was invented in 1849 by the Englishman William Henry Phillips, who patented his “fire annihilator” in England and the United States (US patent #7,269). The first fire extinguisher of which there is any record was patented in England in 1723 by Ambrose Godfrey, a celebrated chemist at that time.

Folding bed. Wrong. Just a patent of a design. Folding beds have been around since 13th century Europe that served as both a couch and a bed.

Folding chair. Wrong. Greece, Rome, Egypt etc all had their versions of a folding portable chair. This is just a patent for his own version. Not an invention.

Fountain pen. Wrong. The first reference to what seems to be a fountain pen appears in an Arabic text from 969 AD; details of the instrument are not known. A French “Bion” pen, dated 1702, represents the oldest fountain pen that still survives. Later models included John Scheffer’s 1819 pen, possibly the first to be mass-produced; John Jacob Parker’s “self-filling” pen of 1832; and the famous Lewis Waterman pen of 1884 (US Patents #293545, #307735).

Furniture caster. Patent. Furniture has been around for ages and casts and molds have been around for just as long for various pieces. This is just a patent on a variation. Not an invention.

Gas mask. Wrong. The invention of the gas mask predates Morgan’s breathing device by several decades. Early versions were constructed by the Scottish chemist John Stenhouse in 1854 and the physicist John Tyndall in the 1870s, among many other inventors prior to World War I. Alexander von Humboldt mad this in 1799 though it was primitive. Lewis Haslett made his in 1849 that was called the first modern mask.

Golf tee. Wrong. A small rubber platform invented by Scotsmen William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas was the world’s first patented golf tee (British patent #12941 of 1889). The first known tee to penetrate the ground, in contrast to earlier tees that sat on the surface, was the peg-like “Perfectum” patented in 1892 by Percy Ellis of England. American dentist William Lowell introduced the most common form of tee used today, the simple wooden peg with a flared top.

Guitar. Grossly wrong. This is a patent. The earliest extant six string guitar was built in 1779 by Gaetano Vinaccia (1759 - after 1831) in Naples, Italy. The Vinaccia family of luthiers is known for developing the mandolin. Instruments similar to what we know as the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years. The guitar appears to be derived from earlier instruments known in ancient central Asia. Instruments very similar to the guitar appear in ancient carvings and statues recovered from the old Iranian capitol of Susa. The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish, possibly from earlier Greek word kithara. Prospective sources for various names of musical instruments that guitar could be derived from appear to be a combination of two Indo-European roots: guit-, similar to Sanskrit sangeet meaning “music”, and -tar a widely attested root meaning “chord” or “string”.

Hairbrush. Another wrong one. An early US patent for a recognizably modern hairbrush went to Hugh Rock in 1854 (US Design Patent no. D645), though surely there were hairbrushes long before there was a US Patent Office. The claim that Lyda Newman’s brush was the first with “synthetic bristles” is false: her patent mentions nothing about synthetic bristles and is concerned only with a new way of making the handle detachable from the head. Besides, a hairbrush that included “elastic wire teeth” in combination with natural bristles had already been patented by Samuel Firey in 1870 (US, #106680). Nylon bristles weren’t even possible until the invention of nylon in 1935. Brushing and combing of the hair can be seen in painting hundreds of years old.

Hand stamp. Wrong. The earliest known postal handstamp was brought into use by Henry Bishop, Postmaster General of Great Britain, in the year 1661. The stamp imprinted the mail with a bisected circle containing the month and the date. These were commonly referred to as “Bishop marks”

Horseshoe. Wrong. Some sources on the web, if not ignorant enough to say Brown invented the first horseshoe ever, will at least try to credit him for the first double or compound horseshoe made of two layers: one permanently secured to the hoof, and one auxiliary layer that can be removed and replaced when it wears out. However, in the US there were already 39 earlier patents for horseshoes using that same concept. The first of these was issued to J.B. Kendall of Boston in 1861, patent #33709.

Ice cream scooper. Wrong. Flavored ices resembling sherbert were known in China in ancient times and sherbert like mixtures in Europe became ice cream by the 16th century. Scoopers have been around as long as ice cream. This is just a patent. Not an invention.

Improved sugar making. Really stupid. Improved is in the name. This is a patent, not an invention.

Insect destroyer gun. Another patent. Plenty of devices that shot liquids to kill bugs have been around before the patent. Not an invention.

Ironing board. Wrong. Of the several hundred US patents on ironing boards granted prior to Sarah Boone’s, the first three went to William Vandenburg in 1858 (patents #19390, #19883, #20231). The first American female patentee of an ironing board is probably Sarah Mort of Dayton, Ohio, who received patent #57170 in 1866. In 1869, Henry Soggs of Columbus, Pennsylvania earned US patent #90966 for an ironing board resembling the modern type, with folding legs, adjustable height, and a cover. Another nice example of a modern-looking board was designed by J.H. Mallory in 1871, patent #120296.

Keychain. Been around for ages since the time of dungeons. This is a patent. Not an invention.

Lantern. Wrong. Like with the keychain, its been around for ages. This is a patent. Not an invention.

Lawn mower. Wrong. English engineer Edwin Budding invented the first reel-type lawn mower (with blades arranged in a cylindrical pattern) and had it patented in England in 1830. In 1868 the United States issued patent #73807 to Amariah M. Hills of Connecticut, who went on to establish the Archimedean Lawn Mower Co. in 1871. By 1888, the US Patent Office had granted 138 patents for lawn mowers (Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art). Doubtlessly there were even more by the time Burr got his patent in 1899. Some website authors want Burr to have invented the first “rotary blade” mower, with a centrally mounted spinning blade. But his patent #624749 shows yet another twist on the old reel mower, differing in only a few details with Budding’s original. Gas mowers didnt come around until the 1930’s.

Lemon squeezer. wrong. This is a patent. Presses and squeezers for various fruits and other foods have been around for ages.

Lawn sprinkler. Wrong. The first US patent with the title “lawn sprinkler” was issued to J. Lessler of Buffalo, New York in 1871 (#121949). Early examples of water-propelled, rotating lawn sprinklers were patented by J. Oswald in 1890 (#425340) and J. S. Woolsey in 1891 (#457099) among a gazillion others. Smith’s patent shows just another rotating sprinkler, and McCoy’s 1899 patent was for a turtle-shaped sprinkler.

Lock. Patent. Too vague. What kind of lock? Locks have been around for ages. Old castle and dungeon keeps and jails cells from ancient times.

Lubricating cup. Wrong. The oil cup, which automatically delivers a steady trickle of lubricant to machine parts while the machine is running, predates McCoy’s career; a description of one appears in the May 6, 1848 issue of Scientific American. The automatic “displacement lubricator” for steam engines was developed in 1860 by John Ramsbottom of England, and notably improved in 1862 by James Roscoe of the same country. The “hydrostatic” lubricator originated no later than 1871.

Lunch pail. Wrong. Handled carriers for food has been around for a long time. This is just a patent for a design he made. Not an invention.

Mailbox. Wrong. The US Postal Service says that “Street boxes for mail collection began to appear in large [US] cities by 1858.” They appeared in Europe even earlier, according to historian Laurin Zilliacus: Mail boxes as we understand them first appeared on the streets of Belgian towns in 1848. In Paris they came two years later, while the English received their ‘pillar boxes’ in 1855. From the same book (p.178), “Private mail boxes were invented in the United States in about 1860.” Eventually, letter drop boxes came equipped with inner lids to prevent miscreants from rummaging through the mail pile. The first of many US patents for such a purpose was granted in 1860 to John North of Middletown, Connecticut (US Pat. #27466).

Mops. Wrong. Mops go back a long, long way before 1893. Just how long, is hard to determine. Restricting our view to the modern era, we find that the United States issued its first mop patent (#241) in 1837 to Jacob Howe, called “Construction of Mop-Heads and the Mode of Securing them upon Handles.” One of the first patented mops with a built-in wringer was the one H. & J. Morton invented in 1859 (US #24049). The mop specified in Stewart’s patent #499402 has a lever-operated clamp for “holding the mop rags”; the lever is not a wringing mechanism as erroneously reported on certain websites. Other inventors had already patented mops with lever-operated clamps, one of the first being Greenleaf Stackpole in 1869 (US Pat. #89803).

Motor. Wrong. We had cars and airplanes and machines before 1939. This is absurd to insist he invented the motor. It is vague as well. Diesel? Electric? regardless, the first electric motors were simple electrostatic devices created by the Scottish monk Andrew Gordon in the 1740s and more variations and types came out later on. 1828 Jedlik demonstrated the first device to contain the three main components of practical DC motors: the stator, rotor and commutator. The first commutator DC electric motor capable of turning machinery was invented by the British scientist William Sturgeon in 1832.Following Sturgeon’s work, a commutator-type direct-current electric motor made with the intention of commercial use was built by the American inventor Thomas Davenport, which he patented in 1837

Peanut butter. Wrong. Peanuts, which are native to the New World tropics, were mashed into paste by Aztecs hundreds of years ago. Evidence of modern peanut butter comes from US patent #306727 issued to Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec in 1884, for a process of milling roasted peanuts between heated surfaces until the peanuts reached “a fluid or semi-fluid state.” As the product cooled, it set into what Edson described as “a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment.” In 1890, George A. Bayle Jr., owner of a food business in St. Louis, manufactured peanut butter and sold it out of barrels. J.H. Kellogg, of cereal fame, secured US patent #580787 in 1897 for his “Process of Preparing Nutmeal,” which produced a “pasty adhesive substance” that Kellogg called “nut-butter.”

Pencil sharpener. Wrong. Bernard Lassimone of Limoges, France invented one of the earliest sharpeners, receiving French patent number 2444 in 1828. An apparent ancestor of the 20th-century hand-cranked sharpener was patented by G. F. Ballou in 1896 (US #556709) and marketed by the A.B. Dick Company as the “Planetary Pencil Pointer.” As the user held the pencil stationary and turned the crank, twin milling cutters revolved around the tip of the pencil and shaved it into a point. Love’s patent #594114 shows a variation on a different kind of sharpener, in which one would crank the pencil itself around in a stirring motion. An earlier device of a similar type was devised in 1888 by G.H. Courson (patent #388533), and sold under the name “President Pencil Sharpener.”

Record player arm. Wrong.  Record player was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Dickenson apparently saw into the future and built the arm 58 years into the past. This is most likely confused with his improvements on pianos.

Refrigerator. Wrong. Oliver Evans proposed a mechanical refrigerator based on a vapor-compression cycle in 1805 and Jacob Perkins had a working machine built in 1834. Dr. John Gorrie created an air-cycle refrigeration system in about 1844, which he installed in a Florida hospital. In the 1850s Alexander Twining in the USA and James Harrison in Australia used mechanical refrigeration to produce ice on a commercial scale. Around the same time, the Carré brothers of France led the development of absorption refrigeration systems. Stanard’s patent describes not a refrigeration machine, but an old-fashioned icebox — an insulated cabinet into which ice is placed to cool the interior. As such, it was a “refrigerator” only in the old sense of the term, which included non-mechanical coolers. Elkins created a similarly low-tech cooler, acknowledging in his patent #221222 that “I am aware that chilling substances inclosed within a porous box or jar by wetting its outer surface is an old and well-known process.”

Riding saddles. Wrong. Riding saddles has been around almost as long as horse riding. And horse riding has been around for 4500 years. This is patent on a variation. Not an invention.

Rolling pin. Wrong. Patent on a design. Not an invention. These have been around for ages all over the world for bakery.

Shampoo headrest. Wrong. Patent on a design. Various mixtures and fluids have been used as shampoo for ages, any place where you washed you head was used to rest it. This is not an invention but a patent of the modern head rests you see in barber shops and salons.

Spark plug. Wrong. Invented in 1860 by Etienne Lenoir for his internal combustion engine. The date for the claimed invention is wrong and confirmed no where. Spark plugs were basically useless without an engine which came years later.

Stethoscope. Wrong. Imhoteps skin color was unknown. Egypt was not black. It was multi racial nation that swapped powers between different groups over its life. The end of egypts reign mostly being controlled by “black” people. His race in contested and believed to most likey be brown or Arab. First modern stethoscope was invented by Rene Laennec in 1816. He claims he invented it when a female patent of his has too much fat between his ear and her heart during a checkup.

Stove. Wrong. This is a patent. Stoves of various kinds have existed for hundreds and thousands of years to cook food. Modern cooking stoves date far back as the 1700’s in France.  Not an invention.

Straightening comb. Wrong. Read about the brush. Same deal.

Stree sweeper. Wrong. Brooks’ patent was for a modified version of a common type of street sweeper cart that had long been known, with a rotary brush that swept refuse onto an elevator belt and into a trash bin. In the United States, street sweepers started being patented in the 1840s, and by 1900 the Patent Office had issued about 300 patents for such machines. The very first street sweeping machine was patented in 1849 by its inventor, C.S. Bishop.

Phone transmitter. Wrong. Phone (with transmitter) was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. This is a patent on an improvement most likely and not an invention.

Thermostat control. Absurd, this is a patent not an invention. It was a design variation.  the earliest recorded examples of thermostat control were built by Cornelius Drebbel around 1620 in England. He invented a mercury thermostat to regulate the temperature of a chicken incubator. This is one of the first recorded feedback-controlled devices. Modern thermostat control was developed in the 1830s by Andrew Ure, a Scottish chemist, who invented the bi-metallic thermostat. The textile mills of the time needed a constant and steady temperature to operate optimally, so to achieve this, Ure designed the bimetallic thermostat, which would bend as one of the metals expanded in response to the increased temperature and cut off the energy supply. The first electric room thermostat was invented in 1883 by Warren S. Johnson of Wisconsin.Albert Butz invented the electric thermostat and patented it in 1886. One of the first industrial uses of the thermostat was in the regulation of the temperature in poultry incubators. Charles Hearson, a British engineer, designed the first modern incubator for eggs that was taken up for use on poultry farms in 1879. The incubators incorporated an accurate thermostat to regulate the temperature so as to precisely simulate the experience of an egg being hatched naturally

Traffic lights. Wrong. The first known traffic signal appeared in London in 1868 near the Houses of Parliament. Designed by JP Knight, it featured two semaphore arms and two gas lamps. The earliest electric traffic lights include Lester Wire’s two-color version set up in Salt Lake City circa 1912, James Hoge’s system (US patent #1,251,666) installed in Cleveland by the American Traffic Signal Company in 1914, and William Potts’ 4-way red-yellow-green lights introduced in Detroit beginning in 1920. New York City traffic towers began flashing three-color signals also in 1920.

Tricycle. Wrong. In Germany in the year 1680 or thereabouts, paraplegic watchmaker Stephan Farffler built his own tricycle at 22 years of age. He designed it to be pedaled with the hands, for obvious reasons. French inventors Blanchard and Maguier developed a tricycle around 1789.

Typewriter. Wrong. Henry Mill, an English engineer, was the first person to patent the basic idea of the typewriter in 1714. The first working typewriter known to have actually been built was the work of Pellegrino Turri of Italy in 1808. The familiar QWERTY keyboard, developed by C. L. Sholes and C. Glidden, reached the market in 1874. In 1878 change-case keys were added that enabled the typing of both capital and small letters. William Burt made his own in 1829.