Beyond Baker’s list: Black innovation then and now

[[VIEW_THIS]]

Director's Blog

Beyond Baker's list: Black innovation then and now

Guest blog by Rebekah Oakes, Acting Historian, USPTO

Left to right: Richard F. America, Henry Baker, Marjorie Stewart Joyner (top), Cornell Conaway, Tope Mitchell, James West (bottom)

In the 1880s, second assistant patent examiner Henry E. Baker took on a project that would become his legacy: compiling the first list of African American patent holders. Over the next few decades, Baker’s list would grow to several hundred entries, an immense repository of contributions by Black inventors to the technological progress of humanity and a powerful record of the public quest for racial equality at the turn of the 20th century. Thanks to Baker’s tireless research, we have at our fingertips a vast repository of Black innovation throughout early U.S. history. Learn how the inventors on Baker’s List have been changing the world for generations as creators, disruptors, and trailblazers in their respective industries, and how Black excellence in invention continues today.

​​​

Stay connected with the USPTO by subscribing to regular email updates.

Visit our subscription center at www.uspto.gov/subscribe to update or change your email preferences.

This email was sent from an unmonitored mailbox. To contact us, please visit our website www.uspto.gov/about/contacts. To ensure that you continue to receive our news and notices, please modify your email filters to allow mail from subscriptioncenter@subscriptions.uspto.gov.