My 'search fu' skills are not as leet as I thought - help a guy help a kid w/ his homework. . .

[episodic]

I have scoured the internet, and I know that someone is gonna pawn me and place a link up here it took them 3 seconds to find.

My son is to do a report on an inventor named A. L. Lewis. The only thing I know for sure is tha he received a patent for window cleaner in the late 1800's - possibly 1892. He is an African-American.

He needs a picture or a likeness of him and at least enough information to hammer out a page or so typed.



I've tried wikipedia, google, ask.com, yahoo, msn, etc. . . and I only get cursory references to him.


Helllllllppppppp

TIA

 

[effowe]

My searches also turned up nothing, he was just listed as an inventor, no more information beyond that really. Maybe the library has a book on famous black inventors or something? It's worth a shot.

 

[dougp]

Can at least confirm 1892 - http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/history.html

 

[BigJ]

You're going to the library buddy.

 

[Flammable]

Originally posted by: BigJ
You're going to the library buddy.

have fun~!

 

[gwlam12]

I found that the A stands for Anthony..

 

[episodic]

No, I'm not going to the library. We don't have one for 60 square miles.

 

[zoiks]

I found a pic for his invention.
http://www.hierographics.org/y...ine/window_cleaner.gif

 

[bladder23]

Originally posted by: episodic
No, I'm not going to the library. We don't have one for 60 square miles.

meh

tell your son to find another person to research about

what grade is this?

grade 8?

 

[DaveSimmons]

". . .his inventions were so important that the government siezed them and erased all public record . . . "

 

[Injury]

http://vrd.askvrd.org/default.aspx?id=6047&cat=1534


Long link to patent... might not work

The other page of the patent

Alternate spelling of "Anthony" as "Antony" yeilded no immediate results.


I would nearly gaurantee you won't find a picture of him, so perhaps the teacher will allow copies of the patent to replace that. Otherwise, you might as well just get a picture of any black man and call her bluff that she doesn't have one, either.


Nothing like "celebrating" Black History Month by giving commonplace assignments recognizing ordinary acheivements and scarcely documented figures. I hate to crap the thread a bit and rant, but if inventing a window cleaner made a difference to overcoming racial turmoil, then I'd think it would be better documented.

 

[pradeep1]

A picture of a black man, that too an inventor, in late 1890's would be hard to come by. Call up your local big city research library and see if they can find something for you. You may be able to sweet talk a research librarian to scan and email you a photo of the guy.

 

[RKS]