Benjamin Banneker — The Mind Behind the Heavens Hoodie

He taught himself the mathematics of the stars.

Benjamin Banneker was born free in Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1731, the grandson of a woman who taught him to read from her Bible. He had a few years of schooling, and the rest he learned on his own. As a young man he borrowed a pocket watch, took it apart, and carved a full-size striking clock almost entirely out of wood. It kept time for decades.

In his late fifties he borrowed astronomy books and instruments from a neighbor and taught himself to calculate the motions of the sun, moon and planets. He predicted the solar eclipse of 1789 when better-known astronomers said otherwise. In 1791 he joined Andrew Ellicott's team surveying the boundaries of the new federal capital, keeping the astronomical observations that fixed their position.

That same year he sent his almanac calculations to Thomas Jefferson, with a letter calling out the man who wrote "all men are created equal" for holding people in slavery. Then he published six almanacs from 1792 to 1797, full of eclipses, tides and star tables, proof in print that the mind Jefferson doubted was real.

The design

Front: He Measured the Heavens. Banneker under the moon phases and an eclipse, with his clock, surveying tools and almanac pages, 1731–1806.
Back: The Banneker Almanacs, a six-year series, 1792–1797. The open almanac beneath the eclipse, with "1791 · Assisted Andrew Ellicott's Survey Team" and Knowledge Made Visible.
Sleeve: the gold Ryland Works crown.
Built to Endure.