Lewis H. Latimer — Light the World Hoodie

Lewis H. Latimer: Light the World Hoodie
Edison gets the bulb. Latimer made it last.

Lewis Howard Latimer was born in 1848 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to parents who escaped slavery in Virginia. At sixteen he joined the Union Navy. After the war he took a job as an office boy at a Boston patent firm, watched the draftsmen work, taught himself to draw, and rose to head draftsman. In 1876 he drafted the patent drawings for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.

Early bulbs burned out fast. Latimer's process for manufacturing carbon filaments, U.S. Patent 252,386, January 17, 1882, made them cheaper to produce and longer-lasting, and it helped make electric light practical enough to wire a city for. He went on to oversee lighting installations in New York, Philadelphia, Montreal and London, joined Edison's company in 1884, and wrote one of the first books on electric lighting.

Inventor. Draftsman. Navy veteran. Author. Poet, too. Born to people who were hunted as property, he drew the blueprints of the modern world.

The design

Front: Light the World. Latimer framed by lightning and his patent bulb drawings, with U.S. Patent 252,386 and January 17, 1882.

Back: From Freedom to the Future. Latimer at the drafting table with his electric lamp patent (Sept. 13, 1881), ringed by Navy Veteran, Inventor, Patent Draftsman and Author medallions.

Built to Endure.