
Few people know that a Black inventor named Lewis Latimer worked with Thomas Edison and played a role in improving the light bulb. Latimer co-created “a method of manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs that made it easier to mass produce them,” according to The New York Times. “Safer than gas lamps, and less harsh than arc lights, incandescent bulbs transformed the average American home after nightfall,” the National Inventors Hall of Fame notes of the invention. Latimer also drew the diagrams for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patent. His cultural contributions weren’t just scientific, he also wrote poems and played the violin and flute.
Latimer’s inventions are unique, but the fact that his story isn’t more widely known is not. His legacy is situated among the ranks of countless Black innovators whose work hasn’t been widely celebrated throughout history. Born in 1848, just six years after his parents escaped from slavery in Virginia, those who know his story see it as a symbol of the perseverance of Black Americans in the face of systemic violence and discrimination.
“His family story encapsulated so many aspects of American history,” said Ran Yan, the executive director for the Lewis Latimer House Museum. The museum, located in Queens, New York, was owned by the Latimer family until 1963 and was moved to its current Flushing location in 1988 after facing possible demolition. It is currently owned by the city of New York and is included in the Historic House Trust.
In June, the house museum reopened after undergoing a seven-month, $770,000 renovation. The New York Times reported the museum now features artifacts, including a diagram of Latimer’s first patent for a design he co-created for a commercially unsuccessful “toilet for railroad cars.” The goal of the renovations was to modernize and digitize the museum dedicated to the inventor. It was completed after the house museum received a $750,000 grant from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a $10,000 grant from the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic House Trust of New York City.
Hugh Price, Latimer’s great-grandnephew and the former chairman of the Lewis Latimer House Museum, recalls his mother trying to pass along stories of his ancestor during his childhood. The 83-year-old knew, for instance, that Latimer’s mother, Rebecca, was pregnant with Price’s great-grandmother when she escaped from slavery. He also knew Latimer’s father, George, had been subsequently captured and that his case drew the attention of notable abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Since enslaved people were considered property, George Latimer had been charged with larceny for stealing himself. George was released from custody after a Black minister paid $400 to secure his freedom.
But Price didn’t know much else about his ancestor. “I always told her I wanted to go play baseball right now and that we’ll talk about it another time,” he said. “I really didn’t lock into [Latimer’s history] until about four or five years ago, when Ran reached out to me and asked me to join the board.” Recently, he said, he discovered that Douglass and Latimer used to write to one another occasionally.
Today, Flushing is more than 50% Asian and less than 2% Black, according to 2022 census data. More than half of the neighborhood’s population are immigrants. But, Yan believes Latimer’s story is one that still resonates with the community.
Price said he saw this for himself when the museum hosted a block party to celebrate the reopening. The event included activities related to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and the arts in honor of Latimer. Hundreds of people attended, he said, but he was moved by the sight of young children using the interactive elements at the museum to engage with Latimer’s poetry and patents.
There has long been a public debate over how to best use house museums and ensure their financial viability. The same year Yan began working for the museum in 2014 as a fellow, the National Trust for Historic Preservation estimated there were more than 15,000 house museums operating across the country, noting that this exceeded the number of McDonald’s in existence in America.
In 2020, the Lewis Latimer House Museum was among the grantees supported by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which was launched by the National Trust in 2017 to provide funding and resources for Black sites seeking preservation support.
Beyond providing a $50,000 grant in 2020, the Action Fund worked with the Lewis Latimer House Museum in 2022 as a part of its Business of Preservation Initiative to help discover new ways the space could be used by the community and become more financially sustainable. CJAM Consulting, a Black-owned consulting firm, was tasked with completing market research to understand potential uses for the site. The research concluded that a few revenue-generating uses for the museum include renting out the house and its garden for professional and community gatherings.
“It was really looking at how [they can] activate it further beyond just people who are interested in going on a tour,” said Di Gao, the National Trust’s senior director of research and development. The museum recently worked with the firm again to promote its reopening.
Gao said the Latimer museum made an “excellent case study” for similar sites looking to ensure long-term relevance and sustainability. To start, there had to be an acknowledgement of the “financial realities” of house museums, which Gao said are “not a purely sustainable model” alone.
Ultimately, she said, historic sites have to “serve important community functions in order to be relevant to the community.”
“How do you make the programming [and] the history relevant to newer generations and to the current people,” Gao said. “That’s the challenge at every site. And there’s no cookie cutter solution for that. It is truly independent and based on the uniqueness of the history, of the legacy, and of the community itself that it intends to serve.”
Price stepped down from the board in September, citing his personal life. Still, he said, he left knowing the reopening achieved what he’d hoped it would. “We wanted it to be a dynamic place for people of all generations to be, and I think we pulled it off,” he said.
For Yan and the Lewis Latimer House Museum, this work is ongoing and will still need to continue beyond this year’s renovations to ensure future generations can learn about Latimer’s life and scientific contributions.
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