“The African American who enlightened Thomas Edison,” Grist calls him.
Lewis Latimer helped define the widely known electric industry. It’s commonly accepted that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, but Latimer introduced an improvement to Edison’s design – a carbon filament as opposed to paper – that significantly increased its lifespan.
He also worked with Alexander Graham Bell, developing enough telephone designs to receive a patent for the device.
He died on December 11, 1928, at the age of 80, and an invention program at MIT is named for him.