thousand circular letters directed to
prominent patent lawyers, large manufacturing firms, and to newspapers
of wide circulation, asking them to inform the Commissioner of Patents
of any authentic instances known by them to be such, in which the
patents granted by the Office had been for inventions by Negroes.

The replies were numerous, interesting and informing. Every one of the
several thousand that came to the Patent Office was turned over to the
writer who, in his capacity as an employee of that department, very
willingly assumed the additional task of assorting and recording them,
verifying when possible the information presented, and extending the
correspondence personally when this proved to be necessary either to
trace a clew or clinch a fact. The information obtained in this way
showed, first, that a very large number of colored inventors had
consulted patent lawyers on the subject of getting patents on their
inventions, but were obliged finally to abandon the project for lack
of funds; secondly, that many colored inventors had actually obtained
patents for meritorious inventions, but the attorneys were unable to
give sufficient data to identify the cases specifically, inasmuch as
they had kept no identifying record of the same; thirdly, that many
patents had been taken out by the attorneys for colored clients who
preferred not to have their racial identity disclosed because of the
probably injurious effect this might have upon the commercial value of
their patents; and lastly, that more than a thousand authentic cases
were fully identified by name of inventor, date and number of patent
and title of invention, as being the patents granted for inventions of
Negroes. These patents represent inventions in nearly every branch of
the industrial arts--in domestic devices, in mechanical appliances, in
electricity through all its wide range of uses, in engineering skill
and in chemical compounds. The fact is made quite clear that the names
obtained were necessarily only a fractional part of the number granted
patents.

It developed through these inquiries that some very important
industries now in operation on a large scale in our country are based
on the inventions of Negroes. Foremost among these is the gigantic
enterprise known as The United Shoe Machinery Company of Boston. In a
biographical sketch of its president, Mr. Sidney W. Winslow, a
multimillionaire,[19] it is related that he claims to have laid the
foun