On April 26, 1892, Sarah Boone made history as the fourth Black woman in the U.S. to be awarded a patent for her collapsible ironing board invention.
Boone’s accomplishment becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact that “just two decades earlier, she could not read.” As an enslaved woman growing up in the south, it was illegal for Black people to be taught to read. In addition, if this was just thirty years earlier before the Civil War, as a Black person, Boone would not even have been permitted to take credit and claim her own invention.
She reportedly escaped slavery by marrying a free man and Boone and her husband moved up north. In a short period of time, Boone was able to learn how to read and decipher “technical documents and diagrams,” well enough that she was able to write and apply for her own engineering patent.
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