Electric Lamp. Patent No. 247,097. Application filed April 18, 1881; patented September 13, 1881.
Washington D.C. Norris Peters Photo-Lithographer for the United States Patent Office, [1881]. First edition, extremely rare, one of 150 copies printed, of the most important patent of the first major African-American inventor. Although Latimer did not invent the electric light bulb (despite Joe Biden’s claim on 3 September 2020), his innovations in the design of carbon filaments, described in this patent, vastly improved the efficiency and life of Edison’s prototype, thus making electric lighting more effective, accessible, and affordable, and leading to its widespread use, transforming modern life. His other inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. “Beginning in 1878, Thomas Edison spent over a year trying to develop an incandescent light bulb using electricity to heat a thin filament. Edison’s bulb looked a lot like what we’re used to – a filament in a glass bulb. But after years of experiments and thousands of tests of various filament materials, his longest-lasting light bulb could only last for about 15 hours before the filament burned out. Around the same time Edison was experimenting with his bulb – using carbonized filaments of bay wood, cedar, bamboo and other fibers – so was Latimer. Born just a year after Edison in 1848, Latimer was an inventor known for working closely with Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone (though some claim that invention is actually Latimer’s). Latimer improved upon Edison’s original design. Latimer created a light bulb with a more durable filament made of carbon … Because of Latimer’s contributions, incandescent light bulbs became more affordable and practical, thus transforming American culture” (‘No, a Black man didn’t invent the light bulb. But Lewis Howard Latimer made it better ,’ CNN, 4 September 2020). “Edison's prototypical light bulb was lit by a glowing, electrified filament made of paper, which unfortunately burnt out rather quickly. Latimer created a light bulb with a filament made of the much more durable carbon. He sold the patent for the ‘Incandescent Electric Light Bulb with Carbon Filament’ to the United States Electric Company in 1881 but did not rest on his laurels. Latimer went on to patent a process for efficiently manufacturing the carbon filament (1882) and developed the now familiar threaded socket (though his was wooden) for his improved bulb. Moreover, Latimer wrote the first book on electric lighting, Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890), and supervised the installation of public electric lights throughout New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London” (‘Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) The carbon-filament light bulb,’ Lemelson-MIT Program, November 1996). “While Edison is widely considered the ‘Father of Electricity’ for his developments in electrical engineering, including a preliminary light bulb, his model was far from the finalized product for which he receives recognition. The original light bulb only burned for a few short hours, even though its platinum filament delayed melting. It was clear that for practical use, changes to the burning filament were necessary. Some claim Edison tested thousands of materials for filament manufacturing before happening upon the best one while others call it a sheer stroke of genius. In fact, an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that the famed giant stood on the shoulders of Latimer’s physical intuition and sound methodology” (Williams, ‘Lewis Latimer: The shadow behind the light bulb,’ APS News, vol. 30, no. 3, March 2021). We are not aware of any other copy of this patent having appeared in commerce. Not on OCLC. “Latimer, the fourth of four children of George and Rebecca Latimer, was born in Chelsea, Mass., on 4 September 1848. Both parents were fugitives, having finally escaped enslavement in Virginia after several unsuccessful attempts. As fate would have it, George was spotted in Boston one day by an acquaintance of the human trafficker who had once held him in bondage. Before Latimer could be returned to Virginia to the control of his former enslaver, a league of abolitionists including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison rallied around him, making him a cause célèbre. A Black Boston minister paid to free him. But the existential dread associated with being a Black man without documents certifying that he was free became more pitched when the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, ruled that an enslaved person was not made free by entering a state whose laws forbid slavery. Understanding that Massachusetts, a “free” state, was not the safe haven he once imagined it to be, George Latimer chose to leave Rebecca and their four children rather than see his precarious legal status put them in the crosshairs of mercenary slave catchers. “At that point, his son Lewis was 10 years old. Despite the hole blasted in the family dynamic, young Lewis remained an excellent student until his academic career was cut short by the loss of George’s income. Out of sheer desperation, his mother split up the family, sending Lewis’ sister to live with relatives and the three Latimer boys to a state-run school where they were trained in farming. “It was, no doubt, lingering resentment over the difficult choices forced upon his parents that led a 16-year-old Lewis to forge identity papers so he could enlist in the U.S. Navy in 1864. He served as a landsman, the Navy’s lowest rank at the time, on the gunboat USS Massasoit during the height of the Civil War. When the war ended in 1865, he was honorably discharged. He returned to Boston, reunited with his mother, and got a job as an “office boy” at a patent law office with a salary of $3.00 a week. “Ever the autodidact, Latimer paid close attention to how the draftsmen at the office produced their drawings. Then, at night, he read books on technical drawing and reproduced sketches he had seen at the office. Before long, he had gained enough expertise to feel confident in approaching his employers about a new role at the firm. Right before their eyes, Latimer produced a set of patent sketches that were so impressive, he was soon promoted to draftsman, with a salary of $20.00 a week. “His exquisite patent drawings and keen understanding of how to translate technological ideas into schematics on the printed page were so highly regarded that when Alexander Graham Bell retained the firm to help him put together his patent application for the telephone, Latimer was assigned to do the work. According to historians at the Latimer House Museum in Queens, N.Y., ‘Latimer helped to develop a more efficient transmitter that improved the quality of the [device's] sound, and his drawings were crucial for securing the telephone patent.’ “In 1879, a then-married Latimer moved with his wife Mary, his mother, and his brother William to Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the advice of his sister Margaret. She lived there, as did their brother George, in a section of town called ‘Little Liberia’ that had been founded nearly a century earlier by free Blacks. “In what could only be described as a stroke of luck, Latimer was working as a draftsman at a machine shop in Bridgeport when Hiram Maxim, who would go onto invent the machine gun, came in one day. Maxim was shocked to see a Black man performing something other than menial duties. Upon further investigation, Maxim realized he had stumbled upon the person who could help him advance his own interests in the nascent field of electric lighting. “Maxim hired Latimer as assistant manager and draftsman at his Unites States Electric Lighting Company, an early rival of Edison General Electric. That was where Latimer developed the invention for which he is most noted—an improved process for producing carbon filaments for lightbulbs that rendered them much more resilient. He even mastered the glassblowing techniques then used to produce lightbulbs. “Latimer’s mastery of the entire electric lighting process was put on full display in 1881 when Maxim dispatched him to England to oversee the setup and operation of an electric lamp factory for the Maxim company’s partnership there. In only nine months—despite staunch resistance from the British workers to the idea of being trained and supervised by a Black man—Latimer succeeded in getting the electric lighting factory up and running. “At the end of that project, which also spelled the end of his contract with the Maxim Lighting Company, he returned to the United States” (Jones, ‘Lewis H. Latimer: A life of lightbulb moments,’ IEEE Spectrum, 25 October 2023). “The available details surrounding Latimer’s work with Edison and Maxim are highly controversial: Some sources make no mention of his scientific prowess, remarking only on his activity as a patent clerk. Other sources insist that Latimer was a scientific equal and forerunner on these research teams and that the records are far too deferential to Edison individually. These scholars speculate the deference was likely a reflection of the times when big ideas couldn’t possibly be ascribed to non-white people. However, substantial evidence exists for one of Latimer’s contributions: the integration of the carbon filament into the 1879 design credited to Edison. The filament was able to better regulate electrical discharge because of the natural durability of carbon, significantly lengthening the lifetime of the bulb for practical use. While working with Edison, Latimer wrote the time’s most thorough book on electric lighting, the 1890 Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System. “For this work, Latimer was formally acknowledged as one of the charter members of the Edison Pioneers, a distinguished group of people deemed responsible for creating the electrical industry. Latimer was the only person of African ancestry in the organization when it was officially formed on January 24, 1918. In 1929, on the 50th anniversary of Edison’s pre-carbon filament design of the light bulb and widely heralded invention of electric light, Latimer’s two daughters were guests of honor of the Edison Pioneers’ annual meeting. However, when the 75th anniversary was celebrated in 1954, no mention of Latimer was made. “In Incandescent Electric Lighting, Latimer recounts the physics that lay the foundation for electric lighting. Latimer had a mastery of his craft and a gift for teaching and is said to have even shared his passion with his siblings and mother before her death in 1910. This book was extremely popular as it presents how an incandescent lamp produces sustainable light in an easy-to-comprehend, conversational style. In this text, Latimer describes that although complex, the electric generator is possible to understand … “The level of detail with which Latimer writes on the physics and mechanics of the incandescent bulb suggest he played an integral role in his partnership with Edison and Maxim. In Latimer’s publication, he describes a relationship between a force, an electric current, and a magnetic field, a concept we now know as magnetic torque, using a loop of wire mounted on a rotating shaft between the two poles of a horseshoe magnet. By turning the shaft rapidly between the two poles, an electric current can be generated in the loop of wire, effectively converting mechanical energy into electrical energy to be used for the light bulb—the same principle is at play in modern generators. Desire for control over this energy conversion in powering lighting systems inspired Latimer to modify Edison’s original designs with one of his own: the carbon filament bulb … “In Incandescent Electric Lighting, Latimer describes the causes of the problem from two practical stand points: (1) a combustible material requires oxygen to burn, and (2) the light bulb burns out because the filament gets too hot and conducts more current than it can sustain. In addition to pumping air out of the bulb, Latimer also suggested that, ‘while the copper and platinum wires readily conduct the current, the carbon filament offers a great deal of resistance to its passage’. Now well known in modern science, carbon can conduct heat well, and it is one of the best materials at dissipating energy in the form of heat and light, thus this new bulb is described incandescent” (Williams, loc. cit.). “In 1884 [Latimer] was invited to work for Maxim’s arch-rival, Thomas Alva Edison, in New York. An expert electrical engineer, Latimer's work for Edison was critical for the following reasons: his thorough knowledge of electric lighting and power guided Edison through the process of filing patent forms properly at the U.S. Patent Office, protecting the company from infringements of his inventions; Latimer was also in charge of the company library, collecting information from around the world, translating data in French and German to protect the company from European challenges. He became Edison’s patent investigator and expert witness in cases against persons trying to benefit from Edison's inventions without legal permission … “After leaving Edison’s employ, Latimer worked for a patent consultant firm until 1922 when failing eyesight caused an end to his career. His health began to fail following the death of his beloved wife Mary Wilson Latimer in 1924. To cheer and encourage him to carry on, his children, two daughters, had a book of his poems printed in 1925 in honor of his 77th birthday. The poems are beautifully sensitive, and complement Latimer’s designation as a ‘Renaissance Man’ who painted, played the flute, wrote poetry and plays. “Active in the Unitarian Church, Latimer found time to teach mechanical engineering, drawing and English to new immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement House. He had remained extremely patriotic, participating as an officer of the famed Civil War Veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). In addition, he supported the civil rights activities of his era. On December 11, 1928, Lewis Howard Latimer died, leaving a remarkable legacy. His name will be forever associated with two of the most revolutionary inventions of all time: the incandescent electric light bulb and the telephone” (George, ‘Innovative Lives: Lewis Latimer (1848-1928): Renaissance Man’. Smithsonian Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, February 1, 1999). In 2006 Latimer was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on electric filament manufacturing techniques.
Folio (274 x 174 mm), pp. 4 ([1r] text, double column, [1v] blank, one leaf of diagrams printed on verso only).
Item #6207
Price: $45,000.00
