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Tiffany Hanssen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hanssen in for Alison Stewart. This month is the 175th birthday of Lewis Latimer, a Black-American inventor who was born in the 1840s to parents who were self-emancipated slaves. Growing up in Massachusetts and later settling in Queens, Latimer served in the Union Navy during the Civil War as a teenager and then went on to be one of the greatest inventors of his time. He helped Thomas Edison develop the incandescent light bulb and contributed to the development of the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell. Given the heat we've experienced in the last few weeks, you can also thank Latimer for being rather the inventor of the early model of the air conditioner.

In total, he was awarded 10 patents by the US government for his inventions, an impressive achievement for a Black inventor given the time period he was operating in. It just so happens that the Lewis Latimer House Museum in Flushing where Latimer lived for over 20 years later in his life and eventually died in 1928 to celebrate him turning 175, the museum is hosting a free event on Saturday. Donations are suggested. There will be a lot of different activities for kids, including creating paper circuits, masking tape sculptures. There will also be a musical performance and science experiment shows.

That event is happening, as I said, Saturday, 1:00 to 5:00 at the museum, which is located at 34-41 West 137th Street in Flushing. With me now to preview that event is Ran Yan, Executive Director of the museum. Hi, Ran.

Ran Yan: Hi, Tiffany. Thanks for having me.

Tiffany Hanssen: Absolutely. I mentioned just a few of the highlights about Latimer's impressive life, but tell us a little bit more about him. I said he was born in Massachusetts. How did his parents achieve emancipation?

Ran Yan: His parents had quite an incredible journey and which gave us a sense of what kind of household Latimer was born into. His parents were both enslaved in Virginia. When Latimer's mom, Rebecca, was pregnant, they decided to escape because they didn't want their kids to be born into slavery. They traveled all the way from Virginia to Boston where Lewis Latimer's dad was involved in the huge local case surrounding his dad's freedom. A lot of the abolitionists advocated for the release of his dad and brought more broadly the rise of the fugitive slaves in Massachusetts. Lewis Latimer was born in a household that was already really invested in fighting for freedom and civil rights.

Tiffany Hanssen: What was his life like as a freed Black child in Massachusetts?

Ran Yan: He was completely self-taught. He didn't have any access to formal education, similar to many other Black Americans at the time. He was mostly raised by his mom. He had siblings who were like-- they really bonded together and supported their mom in some work as well. He taught himself everything, and he even joined the Civil War by lying about his age when he was 16.

Tiffany Hanssen: Right, 16 years old. That's 1864 he enlisted in the Union Navy. Do we know why he decided to do that at that point?

Ran Yan: Yes, his brothers were already serving and as I mentioned, his family had this legacy of fighting for freedom, so it was no surprise that he really wanted to join and serve as well.

Tiffany Hanssen: Do we know if that time in service in the Union Navy affected his, or how he thought about it in terms of his connection to his country and his development for all of these inventions and patents? Did it have an influence? Do we see that directly?

Ran Yan: We think it definitely did. We think it was very possible that he was exposed to mechanics and the operation because he was in the Union Navy, so he was on the ship. He was exposed to the mechanics and operation of machines during his service and which picked his interest in drafting and invention later on. He was possibly also exposed to mechanical drawing during that time. He continued being involved with the veterans group for the Civil War throughout his life.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, I mentioned that he worked with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell to make inventions like light bulb, telephone. How did he get to know these people given the life as you describe it for him there in Massachusetts?

Ran Yan: Well, he really had this incredible motivation and belief in himself really. He started as a regular office boy in a patent law firm in Boston, and he just observed the draftsman in the office and taught himself drafting by saving up money, buying secondhand tools and books. Eventually, he proved to his colleagues that he was really overqualified to be a draftsman, so he was promoted to be draftsman. Eventually, he got to work with many different inventors and became an inventor himself.

Tiffany Hanssen: Do we know how those inventors viewed him at the time? How did they feel about this young Black person coming in, excelling in draftsmanship? Was it a positive experience for them? Do we know?

Ran Yan: It was definitely a complicated experience for him. He chronicled a lot of it in his journal. He mentioned that at first people were very dismissive in the professional world until he really had to prove himself with his capability in drafting and his knowledge in invention, and people were forced to recognize him. In Boston, at the patent law firm, he was eventually the head draftsman in the firm, but he was still making much less than his white colleagues.

Different inventors he worked with had different relationships with him. When he worked with Hiram Maxim, they were relatively friendly and it wasn't easy overall for him to find an employer and coworker that was fully supportive, but later on in his life because of his really obvious accomplishments, he really earned a lot of respect from experts in the field. He was one of the founding chapter members of the Edison Pioneers. There were, I think, 20-something founding members, and he was the only African-American member, of course. He really earned a lot of respect in the hard way.

Tiffany Hanssen: You mentioned his father's impact in the civil rights community in Massachusetts. Did Latimer himself participate in a civil rights movement later in his own life?

Ran Yan: Yes, in his life, after he moved to New York, especially when he settled down with his family in Flushing, their home was a base for prominent African-Americans to gather, including some civil rights leaders, artists, and intellectuals. He was in regular correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois and similar figures. He was invited to the one of the early National Convention of Colored Men, and even though he couldn't participate, he wrote a really enthusiastic letter saying, "I am heart and soul in the movement."

He participated in some local petitions. When the only Black member of the Brooklyn Board of Education at that time was removed, he was actively petitioned to reinstall him. Yes, he was involved in the broader social community of Black intellectuals and advocates at the time.

Tiffany Hanssen: We have a text from the beginning of the show that says, "Lewis Latimer should be a household name for New York City Public School students." To that end, I want to get to this event before I let you go. Saturday, it's his 175th birthday celebration. Tell us a little bit about the event and what we can expect.

Ran Yan: Yes. It's a party [chuckles] and it's great for everyone. We have a variety of fun hands-on activities in science, technology, engineering, art and math for all different ages. We also have musical performances. We also hear directly from some community leaders and elected officials about the importance of Latimer's legacy. We also are bringing our community partners together for this event. We have this exciting project called the Mobile Lewis Latimer Lab where we bring our museum's fun activities on a bus, so that's really fun. The mobile lab will be there. We have partners from all over the city such as Cool Culture, Beam Center, and the event is sponsored by Con Edison as well.

Tiffany Hanssen: That event is this Saturday at the museum, which is at 34-41 West 137th Street in Flushing. That's taking place from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. It's a celebration of Lewis Latimer's 175th birthday. We've been talking to Ran Yan, the executive director of The Lewis Latimer House Museum. Ran, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

Ran Yan: Thank you, Tiffany. It's nice to share Latimer's story.

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