African American Woman Inventor. Miriam Benjamin lived in Washington D.C. school teacher by trade and the second black woman to receive a patent. African American woman inventor Miriam Benjamin received a patent for the Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels.

Miriam Benjamin
Miriam Benjamin lived in Washington D.C. school teacher by trade and the second black woman to receive a patent. African American woman inventor Miriam Benjamin received a patent for an invention she called a Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels. Her invention allowed hotel customer to summon a waiter from the comfort of a chair. A button on the chair would buzz the waiters' station and a light on the chair would let the wait staff know who wanted service. Miriam Benjamin's invention was adapted and used in the United States House of Representatives. The actual patent issued to Miriam Benjamin was on July 17, 1888.

Bessie Blount
African American woman inventor Bessie Blount, was a physical therapist who worked with soldiers injured in W.W.II. Bessie Blount's war service inspired her to patent a device, in 1951, that allowed amputees to feed themselves.

The electrical device allowed a tube to deliver one mouthful of food at a time to a patient in a wheelchair or in a bed whenever he or she bit down on the tube. She later invented a portable receptacle support that was a simpler and smaller version of the same device, designed to be worn around a patient's neck for comfort and ease.

She was unable to successfully market her valuable inventions and found there was no support at all from the United States Veteran's Administration, so she gave the patent rights to the French government in 1952. The French government put the device to good use helping to make life better for many war vets.