8 definitions by Bearonboat
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. As a natural beauty seen widely on the big screen in films like Samson and Delilah and White Cargo, society has long ignored her inventive genius.
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award — making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.
Lorraine Hansberry was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway.
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
African American chemist Percy Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs such as cortisone, steroids and birth control pills.
Percy Julian was an African American chemist.
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
Born into slavery in 1850, inventor and entrepreneur Sarah E. Goode was one of the first African American women to be granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for her invention of a folding cabinet bed in 1885. She died in 1905.0
Entrepreneur and inventor Sarah E. Goode was one of the first African American women to receive a United States patent.
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
Granville T. Woods, born to free African Americans, held various engineering and industrial jobs before establishing a company to develop electrical apparatus. Known as "Black Edison," he registered nearly 60 patents in his lifetime, including a telephone transmitter, a trolley wheel and the multiplex telegraph (over which he defeated a lawsuit by Thomas Edison).
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021
Elijah McCoy was a 19th century African American inventor best known for inventing lubrication devices used to make train travel more efficient.
Elijah McCoy was a 19th century African American inventor best known for inventing lubrication devices used to make train travel more efficient.
by Bearonboat November 28, 2021