Created Equal: The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators

Journalist Brody here compiles biographical sketches of more than 60 African Americans who have brought out inventions and innovative ideas since the slave era. The book lacks an overarching essay, most profiles are brief and workmanlike, but readers may find it valuable as a compendium of long-ignored history. Slave inventors like a man named Ned, who built a cotton scraper in the 1850s, were taken advantage of because, as non-citizens, they couldn't get patents. Jan Earnst Maetzeliger (1852-1889) designed a valuable shoe-stiching machine, but never profited from his invention. Charles Drew (1904-1950) developed the blood bank, but when he headed the American Red Cross blood donor project during WW II, he couldn't persuade the armed forces to mix blood from blacks and whites. Brody devotes the most attention to such better-known innovators as mathematician-astronomer Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), scientist George Washington Carver (1860-1943) and North Pole explorer Matthew Henson (1866-1955). Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)