mote past exhibited
considerable of the inventive genius which has been so instrumental in
the development of our country. In the ordinary course of
investigation along this particular line the official records of the
U. S. Patent Office must necessarily be referred to in order to
ascertain the number of patents granted either for a given class of
inventors, or to a certain geographical group of citizens, as by State
or nationality, or for a given period of time. But, voluminous as are
these records, and various as are the items they cover, they make
almost no disclosure of the fact that any of the multitude of patents
that are granted daily are for inventions by Negroes. The solitary
exception to this statement is the case of Henry Blair, of Maryland,
to whom were granted two patents on corn harvesters, one in 1834, the
other in 1836. In both cases he is designated in the official records
as a "colored man." To the uninformed this very exception might appear
conclusive, but it is not. It has long been the fixed policy of the
Patent Office to make no distinction as to race in the records of
patents granted to American citizens. All American inventors stand on
a level before the Patent Office. It may perhaps be an open question
whether, in the enforcement of such a policy, the advantages outweigh
the disadvantages as it regards colored inventors.

In the period preceding the Civil War mechanical inventions of merit
by colored persons were not numerous, so far as the investigation has
shown, but this was also true of all classes of inventors of that
time. With the great majority of slaves the question uppermost among
them was how to effect their freedom, and those who were fortunately
gifted with an active intelligence and some vision were, for the most
part, using their mental faculties to devise some plan to interest
others in their efforts for emancipation. This situation would
obviously lend itself more readily to developing literary talent and
oratorical ability than to producing machinists, engineers or
inventors. Hence the preachers and teachers and orators of the colored
race that here and there rose above the masses greatly outnumbered the
inventors. But it should be remembered also in this connection that in
the period just mentioned the mechanical industries of the South were
carried on mostly by slaves, and that bits of history gathered here
and there show that many of the simple mechanical contrivances of the