Lewis Howard Latimer was born on September 4, 1848, and died on December 11, 1928. He was an American inventor and a person who created detailed drawings for patents. His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, a better method for making carbon filaments used in electric light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. In 1884, he worked for the Edison Electric Light Company as a patent draftsman. The Lewis H. Latimer House, his historic home, is located near the Latimer Projects at 34–41 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, New York City.

Early life and military service

Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children of Rebecca Latimer (1823–1910) and George Latimer. Before Lewis was born, his parents escaped from slavery in Virginia and traveled to Boston in October 1842. Soon after arriving, George Latimer was arrested because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. His case became a well-known abolitionist cause. Prominent antislavery leaders, including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, supported efforts to stop George from being sent back to Virginia. George eventually gained his freedom after a local Black minister, Samuel Caldwell, raised money to buy his release.

As a child, Latimer helped his father in his barbershop. He also assisted his father in hanging wallpaper in the evenings.

After the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which stated that enslaved people could not become free citizens by moving to a free state, George Latimer—without official proof of his freedom—left Massachusetts to protect his family. Rebecca Latimer separated the children, sending Lewis and his brothers to a state-run farm school and placing his sisters with a family friend.

On September 16, 1864, at the age of sixteen, Latimer joined the United States Navy and served as a Landsman aboard the USS Massasoit.

Career

After leaving the U.S. Navy with an honorable discharge on July 3, 1865, he began working as an office boy at a patent law firm named Crosby Halstead and Gould. He earned $3.00 per week and learned to use tools such as a set square, ruler, and other drafting instruments. Later, his boss noticed his talent for drawing patent designs, and by 1872, he was promoted to head draftsman, earning $20 per week (equivalent to $538 in 2025).

In 1874, Latimer co-patented an improved toilet system for railroad cars with Charles M. Brown. The invention was called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363).

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell hired Latimer, who was then a draftsman at Bell’s patent law firm, to create drawings needed to get a patent for the telephone.

In 1879, Latimer moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and became an assistant manager and draftsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting Co., a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a competitor of Thomas Edison. During his time there, he invented a method to reduce breakages during the production of carbon filaments by placing filament blanks inside a cardboard envelope during carbonization. While working for the Maxim light company in England, he taught the entire process for making Maxim lights, including glassblowing, in nine months to start a factory.

In 1884, Latimer was invited to work with Thomas Edison. He also translated data into German and French and collected information for others.

Latimer developed a device called "Apparatus for cooling and disinfecting," which was an early version of an air conditioner.

In 1894, he applied for a patent for a safety elevator that prevented riders from falling into the elevator shaft.

In 1924, after the Board of Patent Control ended, Latimer worked with Hammer and Schwartz until he retired.

On February 11, 1918, Latimer joined the Edison Pioneers, becoming the first person of color to do so.

Latimer received a patent on September 13, 1881, with Joseph V. Nichols, for a method of attaching carbon filaments to wires in electric lamps. He also received another patent on January 17, 1882, for a "process of manufacturing carbons," which improved the production of carbon filaments for light bulbs by wrapping them in a cardboard envelope.

In 1884, the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City hired Latimer as a draftsman and expert witness in patent cases about electric lights. While working for Edison, he wrote the first book on electric lighting, titled Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890), and oversaw the installation of public electric lights in New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London.

After the Edison Electric Light Company merged with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892 to form General Electric, Latimer continued working in the legal department.

In 1911, he became a patent consultant for law firms.

Patents:
– U.S. Patent 147,363 "Improvement in water-closets for railroad-cars" (with Brown, Charles W.), February 10, 1874
– U.S. Patent 247,097 "Electric lamp" (with Nichols, Joseph V.), September 13, 1881
– U.S. Patent 252,386 "Process of Manufacturing Carbons," January 17, 1882
– U.S. Patent 255,212 "Supporter for electric lamps" (with Tregoning, John), March 21, 1882
– U.S. Patent 334,078 "Apparatus for cooling and disinfecting," January 12, 1886
– U.S. Patent 557,076 "Locking rack for hats, coats, and umbrellas," March 24, 1896
– U.S. Patent 781,890 "Book Supporter," February 7, 1905
– U.S. Patent 968,787 "Lamp fixture" (with Norton, William Sheil), August 30, 1910

Writing

• A poetry book titled Poems of Love and Life.
• A technical book titled Incandescent Electric Lighting (1890).
• Articles published in African-American journals.
• A petition addressed to Mayor Seth Low requesting the restoration of a member to the Brooklyn School Board.

Other activities

Latimer taught English and mechanical drawing to immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement in New York. He believed education was important for helping the community improve.

He participated in the arts by playing the violin and flute, painting portraits, writing plays, and creating poetry.

Latimer supported civil rights early on. In 1895, he wrote a statement for the National Conference of Colored Men about equality, safety, and opportunities for African Americans.

After his military service, Latimer stayed involved with veterans’ groups. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic early and worked as a secretary and adjutant in the organization. He was also a member of Prince Hall Freemasonry.

Personal life

Latimer married Mary Wilson Lewis on November 15, 1873, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Mary was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and was the daughter of Louisa M. and William Lewis. The couple had two daughters, Emma Jeanette (1883–1978) and Louise Rebecca (1890–1963). Jeanette married Gerald Fitzherbert Norman, the first black person hired as a high school teacher in the New York City public school system, and had two children: Winifred Latimer Norman (1914–2014), a social worker who helped protect her grandfather's legacy, and Gerald Latimer Norman (1911–1990), who became an administrative law judge.

In 1879, Latimer and his wife, Mary, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, along with his mother, Rebecca, and his brother, William. They settled in a neighborhood called "Little Liberia," which had been established in the early 19th century by free blacks. (The landmark Mary and Eliza Freeman Houses are the last surviving buildings on their original foundations from this community.) Other family members already living there were his brother, George A. Latimer, his wife, Jane, his sister, Margaret, and her husband, Augustus T. Hawley, and their children. Mary died in Bridgeport in 1924.

Death and legacy

From 1903 until his death in 1928, Lewis H. Latimer lived with his family in a home on Holly Avenue in what is now the East Flushing area of Queens, New York. He passed away on December 11, 1928, at the age of 80. About 60 years after his death, his home was moved from Holly Avenue to 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, which is roughly 1.4 miles northwest of its original location.

• Lewis H. Latimer was honored as a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work improving methods to make electric light filaments.
• The Latimer family home is now located on Latimer Place in Flushing, Queens. It was moved to a nearby small park and turned into the Lewis H. Latimer House Museum to honor the inventor.
• Lewis H. Latimer was one of the first members of the Flushing, New York, Unitarian Church.
• A group of apartment buildings in Flushing are named "Latimer Gardens."
• P.S. 56 in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, is called Lewis H. Latimer School.
• An invention program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is named after him.
• On May 10, 1968, a school in Brooklyn, New York, was renamed Lewis H. Latimer School in his memory.
• In 1988, a group called the Lewis H. Latimer Committee was formed to protect his home in Flushing, New York.
• On September 23, 2023, a gravestone was placed at his burial site in Fall River, Massachusetts.