LEWIS HOWARD
LATIMER (1848-1928)
Inventor
GE Legal Department, December 1894
Courtesy of: Lewis H. Latimer Society
Lewis H. Latimer was an inventor who was responsible
for at least seven patents during his lifetime. The
first in 1874 was for water-closets on railroad cars
and the last in 1905 was for a book support. His major
patents, however, were in the field of incandescent
lighting. In 1881, he received a patent for an electrical
lamp with Joseph V. Nichols. In 1882, he was responsible
for two patents assigned to the U. S. Electric Lighting
Company: the first for a process of manufacturing
carbons and the second for a globe supporter for electric
lamps. In 1890, Latimer published a book, Incandescent
Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System.
Latimer is recognized as “one of very few African
Americans who contributed significantly to the development
of American electrical technology.”
Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts to self-liberated
parents, Rebecca and George Latimer. As a boy, Latimer
attended the Phillips Grammar School in Boston and
delivered The Liberator newspaper. He served
in the U. S. Navy during the Civil War. In 1868, he
joined a Boston firm of patent solicitors working
his way up from office boy with a weekly salary of
$3 to draughtsman earning $20 per week. During this
period he drew the documents for Alexander Graham
Bell's 1876 patent application for the telephone.
In 1879, Latimer left Boston and entered corporate
America as a draughtsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting
Company first in Bridgeport, Connecticut and later
in New York City where he was placed in charge of
producing carbon lamp filaments. In 1883, he joined
the Edison Electric Company, which later became General
Electric, to supervise the installation of electric
lights in New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, and
London. In 1889, Latimer began to work in the legal
department of the company giving advice on patents.
He continued to serve as a patent consultant for a
New York law firm from 1911 until his retirement in
1924. In retirement, he pursued his interests in the
arts, writing poetry and plays, playing the flute,
and painting.
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