Footsteps articles from January 2005

Footsteps archives from January 2005

A history of ingenuity.(African American inventors)
January 1, 2005... Most people spend little time thinking about inventions. Yet, whether you are using a pencil or a computer to write a letter, toasting or microwaving something to eat, talking on the telephone, watching a movie, or playing a video game, you are...

Lewis Temple.(African American inventor)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Lewis Temple was born in Richmond, Virginia. Around 1830, he settled in New Bedford, and began a career in metalworking. During the 1800s, whale oil, whalebone, and whale meat were important trade goods. Dozens of whaling ships set out from...

Invention convention.(African American inventors)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Just as counting inventions would be an endless process, so, too, would be counting black inventors. Invention is an ongoing process, and new ones are being developed and patented constantly. To meet a few more black inventors, try this...

Lighting made easy.(Lewis H. Latimer's incandescent light bulb)
January 1, 2005... Each time you flip on a, light switch or a lamp, you're making a connection to Lewis H. Latimer, a foremost inventor and of electrical technology from its early days. Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1848, six years after his...

What a brilliant idea.(replica of an incandescent light bulb)
January 1, 2005... Lewis H. Latimer invented an incandescent light bulb. Now, you can follow in his genius and build your own replica of his "brilliant" idea. You need: * small plastic bottle, with a screw-on cap * nail * 2 18-inch lengths of...

The Madam of invention.(inventor Sarah Breedlove)
January 1, 2005... Sarah Breedlove was the first self-made African American woman millionaire. Born in 1867, just two years after the Civil War ended, she made her fortune through a series of inventions, all of which helped African Americans care for their hair....

Invent your own cosmetics.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Success did not come to Madam C.J. Walker overnight. This washerwoman bent over many tubfuls of solution before she discovered the "Wonderful Hair Grower" that would make her the most famous black businesswoman of her time. Now, it is your...

Making the shoe fit.(inventor Jan Matzeliger)
January 1, 2005... Shoes are one of the most familiar pieces of clothing that everyone wears on a regular basis. Thanks to inventions by Jan Matzeliger, they are cheaper, more reliable, and more available. Matzeliger began his technical training at the early age...

Four food 'greats'.
January 1, 2005... Sugar, bread, hot dogs, spices, and fresh produce are found year-round in every supermarket. But, these staples we take for granted today were not always so easy to find. The inventions of four African Americans played a major role in making...

Turning ideas into reality.(African American inventor Granville T. Woods)
January 1, 2005... The most prolific African American inventor of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Granville T. Woods was one of only a few black men during this period who supported themselves primarily by inventing. By the early 1900s, his hard work was about to...

Who's who in patents?(African American inventors)
January 1, 2005... Much of what we know about the history of black inventors is due to the work of Henry E. Baker, a key employee at the U.S. Patent Office in the late 1800s. Born in 1859 in Columbus, Mississippi, Baker originally sought a career as a military...

Unraveling a 'black history mystery': recent historical evidence sheds new light on a 19th-century photographer's life.(Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus)
January 1, 2005... Have you ever heard the expression "Don't believe everything you read"? The information you see in print is not always true. In fact, the information can sometimes be plain wrong. Consider the life of Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus. Most sources of...

A talent for temperature control.(David Nelson Crosthwait designed Radio City Music Hall's heating system)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The place: New York City. The season: Christmas. You watch as a group of skaters glide gracefully across the ice at the outdoor rink at Rockefeller Center. The temperature is dropping, and a light snow begins to fall. You walk around the corner...

Never stop.(inventor Tahira Reid voted "Technical Achiever of the Year.")
January 1, 2005... Who would have known that an energetic third grader at Public School 97 in the Bronx, New York, who loved to jump Double Dutch, would become a recognized inventor before she even finished college? As part of a poster competition in 1985, that...

Vaporizing cataracts.(Dr. Patricia Bath's invention of Laserphaco Probe)
January 1, 2005... A go-getter from the start, Dr. Patricia Bath spent her childhood in the 1940s and '50s peering through microscopes and reading books in Harlem, New York. In high school, she won a National Science Foundation scholarship to study at New York's...

Meet Dr. Patricia Bath.(inventor of Laserphaco Probe)(Brief Article)(Interview)
January 1, 2005... What was the biggest challenge in inventing the Laserphaco Probe? So many things had to come together for it. One had to know math, physics, and laser science to figure out how to come up with a delivery system that could remove cataracts....

'Coming into focus'.(Daguerreotypes)
January 1, 2005... Daguerreotypes were the first commercially successful photographs. Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, a French inventor, patented and publicly described his daguerreotype camera and process in January 1839. That same year, Englishman William Henry...

Capture the world through a pinhole.(pinhole photography)
January 1, 2005... Because light rays reflect in all directions at once, a simple way to photograph a scene is to force light rays through the tiny hole in a pinhole camera. The projected image is upside down (above) but otherwise recognizable. If you place photo...

Build an instant camera.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... This camera is just a big cardboard box with a magnifying glass taped onto it! You need: * cardboard box * scissors * magnifying glass * tape * sheet of plain white paper To use your camera, just point it out a...

Black Family Technology Awareness Day.(At The Fair)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Here's a hands-on opportunity to be at the cutting edge of technology. The experience may even spark a few ideas that will put you on your way to a rewarding career in science. What's the event? The Annual Black Family Technology Awareness...

African American Firsts.(Books)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... African American Firsts by Joan Potter (Kensington, 2002, www.kensington books.com) has as a very apt subtitle, "Famous, Little Known, and Unsung Triumphs of Blacks in America." Chapters titled "Business," "Education," "Journalism," "Music,"...

Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation.(Books)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation by Rayvon Fouche (John Hopkins University, 2003, www.press.jhu.edu) focuses on the lives and inventions of Granville Woods, Lewis Latimer, and Shelby Davidson. The well-researched text allows readers to...

Black Pioneers of Science and Invention.(Books)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Black Pioneers of Science and Invention by Louis Haber (Harcourt Brace, 1970, www.harcourt.com) includes detailed, easy- and interesting-to-read biographies of 14 African Americans, including Benjamin Banneker, Garrett Morgan, Elijah McCoy,...

On Her Own Ground: the Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker.(Books)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Leila Bundles Gale Group, 2001, www.galegroup.com) captures, in a daughter's words, the thought and goals of her mother, as well as the significant events in her life.

Scientists, Healers, and Inventors.(Books)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Scientists, Healers, and Inventors by Wade Hudson (Just Us Books, 2003, www.justusbooks.com) is the third in a great series titled "Book of Black Heroes" that features brief biographies of more than 100 personalities. Among those included in...

Cobblestone resources.(More About)
January 1, 2005... The following issues of FOOTSTEPS and its sister magazine COBBLESTONE complement this issue on "Amazing Inventors" and are available from Cobblestone Publishing: Inventions of the 1800s (COB0501) Science Pioneers (FTP0405) African...

On the net.(More About)
January 1, 2005... For a site about African Americans in science, with links to scores of profiles, go to: www.princeton.edu/~mcbrown/display/faces.html For a list of black inventors and recommended books and Web sites on the topic, check out:...

Let's find out.(African American history)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... * Late on a balmy Friday night in April 1848, 77 enslaved men, women, and children hurried to the Washington, D.C., docks. They boarded the schooner Pearl and set off for freedom. A few hours later, the winds died down, and the vessel rested at...

African Americans in the news--past and present.(In The Know)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Small numbers of free blacks had owned land before the Civil War. Once the war ended in 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau began distributing small plots of abandoned land to formerly enslaved people. By 1890, blacks owned 120,738 farms. In 1910,...