Black History Month
Myth twenty-Four

and Twenty-Five

All through the month of February we are instructed to celebrate Black History. We are going to do that by correcting some of the myths circulated throughout the month of February. Each day there will be another entry of the myths of black inventions. It appears the attitude of many people in our country are the same as those of the commenter on this blog a few days ago who stated, “Robb its pathetic you try to deny other races inventions(whether they invented it or not).” I guess this person doesn’t care about the truth. Actually, I am not trying to deny anybody anything, just correcting some myths that are circulated by anti-White zealots.

Did many Negroes hold patents - yes - but a patent is not an invention. Only the uneducated confuse the two.

Also you need to remember that for each of these patents that are issued - there were hundreds of others also issued to many people. Most patents, however, prove to be impractical and therefore never used.

For the record, I am not the author of the following.

Lawn Mower
Did Negro John Burr get a patent for a lawn mower in 1899? - Yes.

Did he invent the laws mower"

That would be a NO!

English engineer Edwin Budding invented the first reel-type lawn mower (with blades arranged in a cylindrical pattern) and had it patented in England in 1830. In 1868 the United States issued patent #73807 to Amariah M. Hills of Connecticut, who went on to establish the Archimedean Lawn Mower Co. in 1871. By 1888, the US Patent Office had granted 138 patents for lawn mowers (Butterworth, Growth of Industrial Art). Doubtlessly there were even more by the time Burr got his patent in 1899.
Some website authors want Burr to have invented the first "rotary blade" mower, with a centrally mounted spinning blade. But his patent #624749 shows yet another twist on the old reel mower, differing in only a few details with Budding's original. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t1JUQiKEahoJ:www.american-lawns.com/history/history_mower.html+history+of+lawn+mowers&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Did Negroes J. H. Smith get a

lawn sprikler patent in 1897 along

with Elijah McCoy in 1899?

Yes, they did get a patent - along with

a gazillion other people.

Did they INVENT the lawn sprinkler?

Nope! Didn't do it!

But they did have very nice drawings on their patent request!

The first US patent with the title "lawn sprinkler" was issued to J. Lessler of Buffalo, New York in 1871 (#121949). Early examples of water-propelled, rotating lawn sprinklers were patented by J. Oswald in 1890 (#425340) and J. S. Woolsey in 1891 (#457099) among many others.
Smith's patent shows just another rotating sprinkler, and McCoy's 1899 patent was simply forfor a turtle-shaped sprinkler. To learn more about sprinklers click here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vc7bXmgNOl8J:www.gardenguides.com/132342-history-lawn-sprinkler.html+history+of+lawn+sprinklers&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com