African-American Inventors

African-American Railway Inventions

African-Americans were largely responsible for developing the railway system. Without the inventive contributions by African-Americans, the railway system as we know it today would never have existed. The following is a list of railway inventions by African-Americans. Though the list is not conclusive, it gives you an idea of how much African-Americans contributed to this industry.

Inventor	Invention	Patent Date	Patent Number
L. Bell	Locmotive smoke stack	May 23,1871	115,153
A.B. Blackburn	Railway signal	Jan 10,1888	375,362
Brown & Latiumer	Water closets	Feb 10,1874	147,363
W.F. Burr	Switching device	Oct.31,1899	636,197
R.A. Butler	Train alarm	Jun 15,1897	157,370
T.J. Byrd	Car couplings	Dec 01,1874
M.A. Cherry	Street car fender	Jan 01,1895	531,980
O.B. Clare	Tresle	Oct 09,1888	390,753
W. H. Jackson	Railway switch	Mar 09,1897	578,641
W.B. Purvis	Electric railway Magnetic device Electric switch (Purvis also patented 10 paper bag machines between 1884 and 1894.)	May 01,1894 May 21,1895 Aug 17,1897	519,291 539,542 588,170
C.V. Richey	Car couping Railroad switch Railroad switch	Jun 15,1897 Aug 03,1897 Oct 26,1897	584,650 587,657 592,448
E.R. Robinson	Electric railway trolley Casting composite	Sep 19,1893 Nov 23,1897	05,370 94,286
J.H. Robinson	Life saving guards	Mar 14,1899 Apr 25,1899	21,143 23,929
A. Romain	Passenger register	Apr 23,1889	02,035
S.C. Shanks	Berth register	Jul 21,1897	587,165
Richard B. Spikes	Contact trolley Railroad semaphore	1919 1906
Frederick M. Jones	Defroster, Air Conditioning Unit, Two-cycle gas engine, Internal Combustion engine, Starter generator
Granville T.Woods	Stream boiler furnace Telephone transmitter (7) Apparatus for transmission of messages by electricity Relay instrument Polarized relay Electro-mechancial brake Telephone system and apparatus Electro magnetic brake apparatus Railway telegraphy Induction telegraph system Overhead conducting sys for electric railway Electro motive railway system Tunnel construction for electric railway	Jun 03,1884 Dec 02,1884 Apr 07,1885 Jun 07,1887 Jul 05,1887 Aug 16,1887 Oct 11,1887 Oct 18,1887 Nov 15,1887 Nov 29,1887 May 29,1888 Jun 26,1888 Jul 17,1888	299,894 308,816 315,368 364,619 366,192 368,265 371,241 371,655 373,383 373,915 383,844 385,034 386,282

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