Black Incentive Culture in Washington, DC

目前，关于非裔美国发明家的学术工作往往集中在个人努力构思一个想法，开发这个概念，将其转化为实践，然后以专利的形式获得对这一知识产权的可辩护的垄断。这部作品通常集中在黑人发明家必须克服的文化和技术斗争上。然而，这个项目考察了促进富有成效的创造性工作的协作社区关系。这项研究扩展了目前对非裔美国发明家的研究，并提供了一个更广泛的背景，从中了解黑人发明家的生活经历。这个项目不是将非裔美国发明家作为与其他黑人发明家隔绝的个体来研究，而是将研究华盛顿特区非裔美国发明家之间的联系--社会、文化和物质--。这位研究人员认为，在20世纪之交，华盛顿特区的一小群活跃的黑人发明家相互依赖，汇集资源，并将彼此用作合作灵感的来源。这个小组的关键成员是亨利·E·贝克，他是美国专利局的助理审查员。他为专利申请过程提供了一个局内人的视角，从而使一群非裔美国发明家成功地驾驭了美国专利局。这项研究将表明，华盛顿特区的非裔美国人发明家利用他们的集体知识，并在种族隔离社会中经历了强大的生存机制，创造了创造性的合作，反映了他们当时的非裔美国人社会和兄弟会组织。这项研究将(1)描述黑人发明家为什么以及如何生活被提升为神话中的黑人发明家，(3)解释研究黑人发明家合作工作的价值，以及(4)提供一个研究计划，以揭示华盛顿特区的黑人发明家社区。

Currently, the scholarly work on African American inventors tends to focus on the individual effort to conceive of an idea, develop the concept, reduce it to practice, and then gain a defendable monopoly for that piece of intellectual property in the form of a patent. This work typically concentrates on the cultural and technological struggles that a black inventor had to overcome. This project, however, examines collaborative community relationships that fostered productive inventive work. This research expands the current study of African American inventors and provides a broader context from which understand the lived experiences of black inventors. Instead of studying African American inventors as individuals disconnected from other black inventors, this project will study the connections--social, cultural, and material--between African American inventors in Washington, DC. The researcher contends that at the turn of twentieth century a small, but active, group of black inventors in Washington, DC relied on each other, pooled resources, and used each other as sources of collaborative inspiration. The key member of this group was Henry E. Baker, an assistant examiner for the United States Patent Office. He provided an insider's perspective to the patenting process, thereby enabling a group of African American inventors to successfully navigate the United States Patent Office. This research will show that African American inventors in Washington, DC leveraged their collective knowledge and experience a powerful survival mechanism in a segregated society to create inventive collaborations that mirrored their African American social and fraternal organization on the day. This research will (1) describe why and how black inventors lives have been elevated to mythic black inventors, (3) explain the value of studying the collaborative work of black inventors, and (4) provide a research plan to uncover a black inventive community in Washington DC.