Black Inventor Lewis Latimer received a patent, along with Joseph V. Nichols, for a method of attaching carbon filaments to conducting wires within an electric lamp
Copy: Thomas Edison (aka the “Wizard of Menlo Park”) was locally and globally described as a phenomenal genius. Many point to the fact that Edison has 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, established America’s first research laboratory and is technically known as the inventor of the light bulb.
But there’s more to the story. Much more. And that much more is Lewis Howard Latimer, born on Sept. 4, 1848, to parents who escaped their enslavement.
Latimer is responsible for many of Edison’s patents because he not only worked as the original draftsman at Edison’s research laboratory but also was assigned by Edison to serve as his chief expert witness in the hundreds of patent infringement lawsuits filed by and against Edison.
Lewis Latimer was an inventor, draftsman, engineer, and scientist as well as a poet, author, artist, flautist and philanthropist.
And it is a little known historical fact that he was also the draftsman who drew the blueprints for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876.
Five years later, in 1881, Latimer (along with his assistant Joseph Nichols) was the first person to receive a patent for the direct forerunner to today’s commonly used light bulb.