Black History

Thomas L. Jennings, First African American to Receive a Patent

OAKLAND POST — Patents are important official documents as they are used to safeguard one’s inventions. The first U.S. patent was issued in 1790. But it wasn’t until March 3, 1821, that a patent was issued to an African American: Thomas L. Jennings. Jennings, born free in 1791, was awarded the patent for his discovery of a process called dry scouring, also known as dry cleaning. While working as a tailor, he discovered that customers needed a solution for soiled clothing, as certain fabrics were difficult to clean. After experimenting with various cleaning agents and solutions, Jennings soon discovered the successful blend for treatment.

Published

7 years ago

July 18, 2019

Tamara Shiloh

By Tamara Shiloh

Patents are important official documents as they are used to safeguard one’s inventions. The first U.S. patent was issued in 1790. But it wasn’t until March 3, 1821, that a patent was issued to an African American: Thomas L. Jennings.

Jennings, born free in 1791, was awarded the patent for his discovery of a process called dry scouring, also known as dry cleaning. While working as a tailor, he discovered that customers needed a solution for soiled clothing, as certain fabrics were difficult to clean. After experimenting with various cleaning agents and solutions, Jennings soon discovered the successful blend for treatment.

Jennings’ patent however, was not without controversy. He was a free man and thus was able to gain exclusive rights to his invention and profit from it. But slaves during this time could not patent their own inventions; creations automatically became property of their owners. This regulation in 1793 patent law was based on the legal presumption: “the master is the owner of the fruits of the labor of the slave both manual and intellectual.” Slaves were not citizens and therefore could not own rights to their inventions.

While there were provisions through which an enslaved person could enjoy patent protection, their ability to seek out, receive, and defend a patent was unlikely.

It wasn’t until 1861 that patent rights were extended to enslaved people.

Pat Sluby, a retired U.S. patent examiner and author of “The Inventive Spirit of African Americans,” wrote of Jennings: “He is the earliest [African American receiver of a patent] that we have recorded … This is 44 years before the end of slavery.”

Sluby also described Jennings as: “A very good entrepreneur and businessman.”

It was during his early 20s that Jennings became a tailor. His skills were so admired that people near and far visited his shop to have their clothing altered or custom tailored. This response eventually allowed Jennings to open his own store on Church Street in lower Manhattan, which grew into one of the largest clothing stores in New York City.

Jennings earned a large amount of money as a tailor, and even more with his dry scouring invention. Most of the money funded his abolitionist activities as well as free the rest of his family from slavery.

He became a leader in the abolitionist and civil rights movement in New York City, was a founder and trustee of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, assistant secretary for the First Annual Convention of the People of Color in Philadelphia in 1831, and helped organize the Legal Rights Association in 1855, raising challenges to discrimination, and funding and organizing legal defenses for court cases.

Jennings died in New York City in 1856. Frederick Douglass wrote about his death, noting the importance of the patent Jennings received and that the patent recognized him as a “citizen of the United States,” a designation at the time that shocked many.

This article originally appeared in the Oakland Post.

Tamara Shiloh

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Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 2 – 8, 2026

Published

3 days ago

September 7, 2026

Oakland Post

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Black History

Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions

As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 30, 2026

Post News Group

Jackie Wright of Wright Enterprises. Photo courtesy of Wright Enterprises.

By Carla Thomas

Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.

As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.

Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.

The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.

“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.

That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.

“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.

Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.

“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.

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Black History

BOOK REVIEW: Every Inch of a Lady

“Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, and honeyed in Harlem” in 1937, Audrey Smaltz was a force to be reckoned with almost from the time she could walk. Her parents imbued confidence in her; they nurtured her creativity and sent her to charm school, but they never allowed her to create a stir.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 30, 2026

Post News Group

Audrey Smaltz' latest book "Every Inch a Lady" with Alina Mitchell, is a colorful autobiographical story following a young Black model's pursuit to become a fashion designer in New York City during the pre-Civil Rights era.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell, foreword by Michael Kors, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Amistad, SRP: $27.99, Page Count: 256 Pages, Snaps, zippers, buttons, ties.

Toss that garment on, pull it up, wrap it around; you know what you like and how to wear it. The color is perfect for your skin tone, and the fabric enhances your figure. Yep, you always look your best and, as in the new book “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell), that best is fabulous.

“That,” says Smaltz, “is not what ladies did.”

By the time she was a teenager, Smaltz was modeling for New York City designers. Shortly thereafter, she started working for a married man with whom she had an affair, and whom she loved very much. She broke up with him, attended college, and worked a series of jobs that taught her about fashion and jobs that didn’t seem to fit her. An ill-fated marriage took her to Chicago, where she ultimately landed a position that sent her to work in Ebony magazine’s New York office.

Working at Ebony was a career-changer, in a way. Smaltz traveled the world and learned more about fashion, but she didn’t exactly get along with her boss.

Finally, seizing an opportunity, Smaltz decided to launch her own company, Audrey Smaltz, Inc., a “fashion production business,” but she couldn’t get any designers to take a chance on her. Undaunted, she reorganized, re-branded, hit the streets, and knocked on doors until she finally found one client, which led to many others.

Through it all, her personal life was a whirlwind. She dated “more men than you can shake a book at,” settling down occasionally, briefly. Fashion had always been her first love, but she accidentally found real love, “the love of a woman,” at a leadership course…

There’s an old saying that writers need to add lots of “color” into their stories. Read a little of “Every Inch a Lady,” and you’ll notice immediately that author Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell) quite literally takes that to heart by mentioning nearly every color of the spectrum here. Hmm.

That oddity aside, Smaltz is a wonderfully lively storyteller, speaking with the energy of a woman much younger to the heart of anyone who loves fashion. That glee extends to collectors of vintage clothing, who will be delighted to read about the industry long ago and the way things worked then. Smaltz says she experienced racism, which is not unusual for pre-Civil Rights America, but doors were surprisingly closed for other reasons that will astound anyone who’s savvy about the fashion industry, even today.

There’s quite a bit of name-dropping in this book, but most of it belongs in the anecdotes, so you likely won’t mind. If you’re a fashionista, too, find “Every Inch a Lady,” and snap it up.