Preslaysa

Sarah Boone was an inventor who is best known for the improvements which she made to the ironing board. Sarah was one of the first African American women to receive a patent in the United States. Judy Reed, another Black female inventor, received her patent for the dough and knead roller eight years earlier, in 1884, and so Judy is considered the first Black woman to receive a patent in the USA.

The ironing board was first patented in 1858, but Boone’s improvement was patented on April 26, 1892 as U.S. Patent #473,653. Her patent made the ironing board more amenable to the “sleeves and bodies of ladies’ garments” (Source: USPTO). Boone’s improvement to the ironing board took the previously rigid edges of the board and curved them slightly to fit the seams of most women’s clothing of the time. 

Sarah Boone was born enslaved in North Carolina in 1832. Her birth name was Sarah Marshall, and she later married a person named John Boone. They had eight children together. Shortly after their marriage, the couple was freed, and they moved to New Haven, Connecticut where she worked as a dressmaker. John Boone was a bricklayer. She died in New Haven in 1904.

Maggie Lena Walker (1864-1934) opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903, becoming the first African American woman and the first woman to open a chartered bank in the United States. Previous to this, Walker volunteered with the Independent Order of St. Luke, a civic and social organization that aided African Americans in times of illness, old age, and death.

With the benefit of Walker’s public relations skills and business acumen, the struggling order eventually became successful. As with the Order, Maggie Lena Walker’s bank began to flourish through the 1920s. In 1930, as a result of the Great Depression, the bank merged with two other banks to become the Consolidated Bank & Trust Company, the oldest Black-owned and Black-run bank in the United States.

In 2005 the Consolidated Bank & Trust Company was acquired by Abigail Adams National Bank Corp. In 2011, the Consolidated Bank & Trust Company merged to become Premier Bank. Read more about the mergers here.

Early Life

Walker was born on July 15, 1864 in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother was Elizabeth Draper. Maggie’s mother started off her life as an enslaved woman who worked as an assistant cook in the home of Civil War Spy Elizabeth van Lew. Her father was Eccles Cuthbert, an Irish newspaperman and northern abolitionist who worked at the van Lew estate.

Walker attended segregated public schools in Virginia and graduated at the top of her class in 1883. She taught grade school for three years and took classes in accounting and business.

Adult Life

In 1886, she married Armistead Walker, Jr. a wealthy Black contractor and member of her church. They had two sons named Russell and Melvin. After marriage, she stayed home to raise her children and stopped teaching. She then volunteered as a Community Organizer for the Independent Order of St. Luke which, as stated earlier, provided aid for African Americans at critical times during their lives.

In 1902, she started a newspaper for the order entitled the St. Luke Herald. She wrote a column for the newspaper for many years. In 1903, she saw an opportunity for the Order of St. Luke and started a bank, serving as the bank’s first President until 1932.

Activism and End of Life

Walker was a member of the National Association of Colored Women. She was Vice President of the Richmond chapter of the NAACP. In 1923, she earned a honorary Masters degree from Virginia Union University, a HBCU in Richmond.

In 1928, her health declined because of paralysis, but she still served as President of the bank until her death on December 15, 1934.

Source: Black Past

Lucy Craft Laney was a trailblazing Black educator. In 1883, she founded the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Georgia, named for the school’s primary benefactor. Lucy Craft Laney was the principal of the school from 1883-1933. In addition to Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, Laney founded the first African American kindergarten in Georgia and the first nurse training programs for African Americans.

Early Life

Lucy Craft Laney was born on April 13, 1854. She was one of ten children. Her parents weren’t enslaved. They purchased their freedom twenty years prior to Lucy’s birth. Lucy learned to read and write at the age of four. She could also translate passages of Latin by the age of twelve.

In 1869, she enrolled in Atlanta University (later known as Clark Atlanta University). She graduated from teacher training in 1873. Despite her knowledge of Latin, she was not allowed to take Classics courses because she was a woman.

Teaching Career

After teaching for ten years in various cities in Georgia, she started a school in 1883 in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia. She received a state charter for the school three years later. Lucy intended for the school to be only for Black girls, but she did admit some Black boys who were in need of education.

She was always searching for funding for Haines Normal School. In 1886, she attended the General Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian Church and addressed the all-white assembly in the hopes of getting funding. She received none.

However, a white woman by the name of Mrs. Francine E.H. Haines overheard her speech at the assembly and contacted Lucy. Mrs. Haines donated $10,000 to the school and became a lifelong benefactor of the school. Lucy named the school after Mrs. Haines.

By 1912, Haines School employed 34 teachers and had 900 enrolled students. It also included a fifth year of college preparatory education which included Classics training. Many of the graduates of the school matriculated at Howard, Fisk, Yale, and other renowned universities.

Activism and End of Life

Lucy founded a local chapter of the NAACP in Augusta, Georgia. She, along with Henry McNeal Turner and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were the first African Americans to have their portraits hung in the Georgia State Capitol. She died on October 23, 1933.

Source: The Lucy Craft Laney Museum