Lewis Latimer drew Bell's telephone and improved the light bulb, and his father was a fugitive case (Boston / Bridgeport / New York, 1842–1918)

SUMMARYLewis Latimer drew Bell's telephone and improved the light bulb, and his father was a fugitive case (Boston / Bridgeport / New York, 1842–1918) [Connections: Tech & skilled labor, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDLatimer's parents, George and Rebecca Latimer, escaped slavery in Virginia to Boston in 1842. George was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and his release was bought after an abolitionist campaign. Lewis started as an office boy at the patent firm Crosby, Halstead and Gould for $3 a week and became head draftsman at $20 a week by 1872. In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell hired him to draft the drawings for Bell's telephone patent. At Hiram Maxim's US Electric Lighting Co. he patented a "Process of Manufacturing Carbons" (US 252,386, filed 19 Feb. 1881, granted 17 Jan. 1882), which reduced filament breakage. In 1884 the Edison Electric Light Company hired him as a draftsman and expert witness in patent cases. On 11 Feb. 1918 he became the first person of color in the Edison Pioneers.
STATUS: free (wage worker; inventor). His father George is self-emancipated, then freed by purchase (per Wikipedia)

PATTERNThe son of a fugitive drew the patents that carry other men's names, as well as holding his own

LENS (WW9)The drawings on the patents of the two "fathers of modern tech" came from one of our hands

OPENThe assignee of 252,386 (US Electric Lighting?). The patent record page does not say

SOURCELewis Latimer House, patent no. 252,386; Wikipedia, "Lewis Howard Latimer".