Black Incentive Culture in Washington, DC

目前，关于非裔美国发明家的学术工作倾向于关注个人的努力，即构思一个想法，发展这个概念，将其转化为实践，然后以专利的形式获得可辩护的知识产权垄断。这部作品主要集中在黑人发明家必须克服的文化和技术斗争上。然而，该项目考察了促进生产性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。这个项目将研究华盛顿特区的非裔美国发明家之间的社会、文化和物质联系，而不是将非裔美国发明家作为与其他黑人发明家脱节的个体来研究。这位研究人员认为，在20世纪初，华盛顿特区有一群黑人发明家，人数不多，但很活跃，他们相互依赖，汇集资源，并将彼此作为合作灵感的来源。这个小组的主要成员是亨利·e·贝克，他是美国专利局的助理审查员。他提供了一个内部人士的视角来了解申请专利的过程，从而使一群非裔美国发明家能够成功地在美国专利局（United States Patent Office）工作。这项研究将表明，华盛顿特区的非裔美国发明家利用他们的集体知识和经验，在一个隔离社会中建立了强大的生存机制，创造了创造性的合作，反映了当时非裔美国人的社会和兄弟组织。本研究将(1)描述黑人发明家的生活为什么以及如何被提升为神话般的黑人发明家，(3)解释研究黑人发明家合作工作的价值，(4)提供一个研究计划，以揭示华盛顿特区的黑人发明社区。

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.