Black Inventions Museum visits campus

The contributions of two centuries of African-American inventors, whose ideas range from labor-saving to life-saving innovations, are on display today and Friday, Dec. 4 at the College of Engineering.

The Black Inventions Museum, a traveling exhibit based in Los Angeles, will be showcased from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday in the Engineering Hall lobby, 1415 Johnson Drive. The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, features biographical sketches of inventors, scale models of inventions and copies of patent documents on more than 100 widely used inventions.

Inventions include the lawn mower, invented by John A. Burr; the gas mask and traffic signal, invented by Garrett Morgan; the fire extinguisher, invented by Tom J. Marshal; the refrigerator, by J. Standard; and the roller-coaster and telephone transmitter, by Granville T. Woods.

Shown in dozens of universities, churches and libraries across the country, the museum is a non-profit corporation founded by book publisher Lady Sala S. Shabazz. Another portion of the exhibit focuses on major advances in African civilization, such as paper, medicine and the alphabet.

The program is sponsored by the Wisconsin Black Engineering Student Society. If you wish to cover the event, contact Alem Asres, an assistant dean of engineering and director of diversity affairs, at (608) 262-2473; or e-mail asres@engr.wisc.edu.