Thomas L. Jennings
First African American known to hold a United States patent
At a glance
- Inventor
- Thomas L. Jennings
- Life
- 1791–1856
- Birthplace
- New York City
- Country
- United States
- Region
- United States
- Era
- 1800s
- Fields
- Everyday Life, Industry & Materials
- Evidence
- Documented
- Records
- 1 in this archive
What they did
A free Black tailor and clothier in Lower Manhattan, Jennings patented a 'dry scouring' process for cleaning garments in 1821 — the earliest United States patent this archive can attribute to an African American inventor.
Historical context
Enslaved people could not hold US patents, because they could not enter into the legal contracts a patent required. Jennings was free, and so the door that was closed to most Black Americans was open to him.
Obstacles
He used his income from the process to buy family members out of slavery and to fund abolitionist organising, including the first Black-owned newspaper, Freedom's Journal.
The legacy
His original patent papers were among those destroyed in the 1836 Patent Office fire, which is why the record survives through restored indexes and contemporaneous accounts rather than the filing itself.
The evidence
Restored X-patent index, patent 3306X (1821)
Primary recordThomas L. Jennings biographical record
Institutional record
Documentation strength
- 2
- Sources
- 1
- Primary
- 2
- Publishers
Calculated from the sources actually attached to this record — the closer a source sits to the original document, the more it counts. It is never asserted by hand.