Henry Edwin Baker Jr.
(September 1, 1857 – April 27, 1928)
He was the third African American to enter the United States Naval Academy. He later served as an assistant patent examiner in the United States Patent Office, where he would chronicle the history of African-American inventors.
Baker was born on September 1, 1857, in Columbus, Mississippi, and attended the Columbus Union Academy there. He received an appointment at the Naval Academy but encountered racial hazing. After two years, he transferred and completed his education at the Ben-Hyde Benton School of Technology in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1879.
He went into law, graduating in 1881 from Howard University School of Law, a historically black college, at the top of his class. He also completed post-graduate work there in 1883.
After earning his law degree, Baker joined the United States Patent Office in 1877 as a copyist. He rose through the ranks to Second Assistant Examiner by 1902. He wrote a book and articles on the history of African-American inventors.
Writings
Baker, Henry E. (1913). The Colored Inventor: A Record of Fifty Years. New York City: The Crisis Publishing Company.
Baker, Henry E. (1902). “The Negro as an Inventor”. In Daniel Wallace Culp (ed.). Twentieth Century Negro Literature; Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro. Naperville, Illinois; Toronto: J.L. Nichols & Company. pp. 398–413. ISBN 9780598621122.
Baker, Henry E. (January 1, 1917). “The Negro in the Field of Invention”. The Journal of Negro History. 2 (1): 21–36. doi:10.2307/2713474. ISSN 0022-2992. JSTOR 2713474.