A nonprofit celebrating African American and Black innovation is on the cusp of opening the country’s first museum dedicated to Black inventors in a New Jersey community that boasts the motto “where invention lives.”
James Howard, the head of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame, a nonprofit that highlights the contributions of Black inventors both past and present, said the company signed an agreement to take over the site of shuttered wedding venue in West Orange. The township’s motto references one of its most notable residents: Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph and more than 1,000 other patented innovations.
Three years ago, Howard was being interviewed by a local New Jersey television station about his career as a Black inventor and historian when the reporter asked him if – given his extensive knowledge – he’d ever considered opening a museum for Black inventors.
Howard, whose more than 20 patents include one for a neonatal pressure relief valve that helps resuscitate infants at birth, told Gothamist that he let the idea of opening a museum “sort of marinate” after the interview.
“And then two months later, I’m opening up a nonprofit under the moniker ‘Black Inventors Hall of Fame,’” he said.
Howard said his nonprofit has entered into a contract last month to take over the former site of Mayfair Farms, a popular West Orange wedding venue and events space that closed in 2022.
He said the nonprofit is currently doing due diligence and and inspecting the site. After that, the nonprofit will need additional town approvals to move ahead on the plan to renovate the existing structure.
Howard said that once those approvals are given, it’ll be another two or three years before the museum can open because of plans to rehabilitate the existing building and construct an annex that would hold several exhibition halls.
Howard said the completed museum would occupy about 107,000 square feet and include exhibition halls, an auditorium, a library and a STEM learning center.
Mayor Susan McCartney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. McCartney previously told Montclair Local that the project is in the preliminary phase but the township wants the museum to come to West Orange.
Howard said the museum aims to highlight 400 years of Black invention and showcase different “eras” of innovation. For example, the museum will showcase what Howard referred to as “the golden era” from about 1840 to 1940, when inventors such as George Washington Carver, Garrett Morgan and Granville T. Woods were active. During that time, Howard said, Black inventors were just as likely to pursue patents as their white counterparts.
“The problem was because of the oppression and because of the uphill climb that it took from a lack of franchise, we simply were not as successful in terms of completing that patent journey, as the white counterparts,” he said.
Howard said he’s particularly proud of a planned exhibit on aviation and aeronautics, which will feature a full-sized replica of Charles Frederick Page’s airship. Page was working on his airship in the early 1900s, at the same time as the Wright brothers. Howard said Page shipped off his model to the Louisiana World Exposition in 1904, but “it disappeared.”
Page still managed to receive the patent for his invention in 1906 – 42 days before the Wright brothers did.
Howard said he’s working with Page’s grandson and plans to construct the replica airship at the museum.
“For the first time, the world will get a chance to see just what this ingenious man envisioned,” he said.