Henry Blair Change The Face of Agriculture

Henry Blair was born in Glen Ross, Maryland, in 1807. Blair was an African American farmer who patented two devices designed to help boost agricultural productivity. In so doing, he became the second African American to receive a United States patent. Little is known about Blair's personal life or family background. It is clear that Blair was a farmer who invented new devices to assist in the planting and harvesting of crops. Although he came of age before the Emancipation Proclamation, Blair was apparently not enslaved and operated an independent business. A successful farmer, Blair patented two inventions that helped him to boost his productivity. He received his first patent — for a corn planter — on October 14, 1834. The planter resembled a wheelbarrow, with a compartment to hold the seed and rakes dragging behind to cover them. This device enabled farmers to plant their crops more efficiently and enable a greater total yield. Blair signed the patent with an "X," Blair obtained his second patent, for a cotton planter, on August 31, 1836. This invention functioned by splitting the ground with two shovel-like blades that were pulled along by a horse or other draft animal. A wheel-driven cylinder behind the blades deposited seed into the freshly plowed ground. The design helped to promote weed control while distributing seeds quickly and evenly. In claiming credit for his two inventions, Henry Blair became only the second African American to hold a United States patent. While Blair appears to have been a free man. In 1871, after the Civil War, the law was revised to grant all American men, regardless of race, the right to patent their inventions. Blair's invention crossed the racial gulf to feed all Americans, and his inventions are a demonstration that innovation lives in the human spirit. Henry Blair changed the agricultural landscape by showing us through the power of invention that we are all threads in the fabric of America