Willis johnson biography egg beater
Willis johnson biography egg beater
Willis johnson inventor!
Today February 5th …
A patent was issued on this day in 1884 in America for a new, improved egg-beater. The Patent Office must have been a busy place in the nineteenth century for it was a time of great innovation and invention, but what was unusual for the era was that the patent was granted to an African-American.
A patent was issued on this day in 1884 in America for a new, improved egg-beater. The Patent Office must have been a busy place in the nineteenth century for it was a time of great innovation and invention, but what was unusual for the era was that the patent was granted to an African-American.
Willis Johnson was not the first ‘coloured person’ to receive a patent - that honour went to Thomas L. Jennings, a New York tailor who developed a new dry-cleaning process in 1821 – but it was hardly a common occurrence in the 1800’s for those who came from slave stock to be acknowledged in this way.
Johnson’s invention (Patent number 292, 821) was not for a simple egg-beater.
It was a commercial mixing machine with two separate chambers each capable of mixing “in the most intimate and expeditious manner” a large quantity of “eggs, batter, and other similar ingredients used by bakers, confectioners, &c”.
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