Politics
Reopening for Juneteenth, a Museum Celebrating a Black Inventor
Lewis Howard Latimer worked for Thomas Edison and drew patent diagrams for Alexander Graham Bell. A museum in Queens displays his work.
Good morning. It’s Friday. Today, and on Fridays through the summer, we’ll focus on things to do in New York over the weekend.
Credit…James Barron/The New York Times
Near a video screen on a display wall in a charming, small museum in Queens is a pair of $150 sneakers with a number: 247097. It is the number of a patent issued in 1881.
The shoes light up when someone walks in them for a few steps. As Under Armour noted when it introduced them last year, the sneakers were a tribute to Lewis Latimer.
Who?
Lewis Howard Latimer, the Black draftsman and inventor who, with a collaborator, devised a method of manufacturing carbon filaments for lightbulbs that made it easier to mass produce them.
And who worked for Thomas Edison after working for a rival in the early days of electric lighting.
And who drew the patent diagrams for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone.
