African-American Women Scientists and Inventors

Women all over the world have suffered due to sex discrimination. In the United States, it was altogether a different story; besides sexism, there was racial discrimination too. Hence, it became almost impossible for African-American women to overcome the shadow of hate and discrimination. These were some women who had the courage to defy the odds and achieve what others couldn't.

Sarah P. Goode
Sarah P. Goode was born into slavery in 1850. She invented the cabinet bed and was the first African-American woman to be granted a patent in USA. She owned a furniture store, and noted that city apartment dwellers often had less space for beds. So, she came up with a design, that we now know as 'hide away' bed. When not used as a bed, her invention can be used as a desk.

Madam C.J. Walker
Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919) was a businesswoman, hair care entrepreneur and a philanthropist. She was born as Sarah Breedlove Walker in Delta, Louisiana. Sarah Breedlove developed a conditioning system for straightening hair, and marketed a hugely successful line of hair care products. She went door to door to market her cosmetics and made a fortune out of it. Madam C.J. Walker was, in fact, the first American women to become a millionaire through her own efforts. It was only when she started going bald due to dandruff and other hair disorders, she initiated the idea of developing hair care products. She left 2/3rd of her wealth to charities, and also employed thousands of African-American women as commissioned agents.

Sarah Boone
Sarah Boone invented a device to iron clothes effectively. Prior to her invention, people were forced to use a table for ironing clothes. In 1892, she received a patent for the device. Her invention was very effective in ironing the sleeves of ladies' garments.

Roger Arliner Young
Roger Arliner Young was born in Clifton Forge, Virginia in 1899. She was a zoologist and biologist, and the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate in zoology. Roger Arliner Young enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study music. But later, took up a science course under the guidance of Ernest Everett Just, who was her mentor and a prominent black biologist. While pursuing her Master's at Chicago University, she was asked to join Sigma XI, a scientific research society. In 1924, she made a significant contribution to the study of structures that control salt concentration in paramecium.

Bessie Blount Griffin
Bessie Blount Griffin was born on November 24, 1914 in Hickory, Virginia. She was multi-talented. Bessie Griffin was a physical therapist, inventor and a forensic scientist. She worked with the injured soldiers during World War II; which inspired her to devise a feeding apparatus to help the amputees feed themselves. In 1951, she invented an electronic feeding device, which delivered food through the feeding tube and was controlled by biting down on the tube.

Her invention was rejected by the American Veterans Administration, so she sold the invention to France. Ditto, for her invention of disposable cardboard emesis basin, she developed with Theodore Edison, son of famous inventor Thomas Edison. Later, she sold the invention to Belgium.

Marie Brown
Marie Brown was born on October 30, 1922 in Queens, New York. In 1966, she applied for a patent of closed circuit television security system. The system included a motorized camera which could slide up and down peeping through a set of 4 peep holes. Images which the camera captured were shown on a monitor. She got the patent in 1969.

Annie Easley
Annie Easley was born on April 23, 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama. She is an African-American computer scientist who worked for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor agency, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics's Lewis Research Center. She was one of the first African-American women in the team, that developed software for the Centaur rocket stage.

In her 34 years of career, she developed and implemented computer code that analyzed substitute power technologies, supported Centaur, identified wind, solar and energy projects for NACA. She also helped to determine energy conversion systems and alternate systems to solve energy problems.

Patricia Bath
Patricia Era Bath was born on November 4, 1942 in Harlem, New York. She is an ophthalmologist and a laser scientist. Her significant achievement includes, invention of new device and technique for cataract, known as laserphaco. She was appointed as the first woman chair of ophthalmology in the United States, at Drew-UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) in 1983.

In 1988, she received a patent for a device, designed to remove cataracts with fiber optic laser. She was the first woman ophthalmologist at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute and the first African-American surgeon at UCLA Medical Center.

Mae C. Jemison
One of the most famous woman astronauts, Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956 in Decatur, Alabama. On September 12, 1992, she became the first African-American woman to travel in space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor. Jemison was the youngest child in her family and was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. She says, "The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up."

Jemison graduated from Stanford University, receiving a B.S. in chemical engineering. Later, she obtained her Doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell Medical College (now known as Weill Medical College of Cornell University). She served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Her first application for NASA's astronaut program was rejected. However, her second application was accepted, and she was one of the15 candidates selected from over 2,000 applicants. She completed her astronaut training in August, 1988 and became the fifth black astronaut and first female black astronaut in the history of NASA.

These are a few African-American women who helped to make the world a better place. There were others too, who made significant contributions, but they were not recorded in the history books.