Bessie Virginia Blount
She was a writer, nurse, physical therapist, inventor and forensic scientist, known for Assistive Devices
1914
2009
Virginia, USA
African-American
1948 – The American Veterans Administration (VA) declined Blount’s invention of an electric self-feeding apparatus for amputees, which she developed while working at the Bronx Hospital in New York.
1952 – she licensed it freely to the French government. She remarked in an interview with the Afro-American that her accomplishment showed that “a colored woman can invent something for the benefit of humankind”
April1951 – Blount was granted US Patent 2,550,554 when she also devised a neck frame for an injured or ill patient, that holds a bowl or cup close to their face as a `portable receptacle support’.
During her career, Blount was a physical therapist to Thomas Edison’s son, Theodore Miller Edison. Blount and Edison became close friends. During that time she invented the emesis basin, which was a kidney shaped disposable cardboard dish made out of flour, water, and newspaper that was baked until the material was hard. When the U.S. showed no interest in Blount’s invention she sold the rights to it to a company in Belgium. Her design is still used in Belgian hospitals.
Blount attended Diggs Chapel Elementary School in Hickory, Virginia, a school built after the Civil War for the education of African American children. In an interview with the Virginian, Griffin recalled that her school “didn’t have textbooks. They later got them from the white schools.” While attending Diggs Chapel, Blount’s teacher reprimanded her for writing with her left hand by rapping her knuckles, a form of discipline used at the time to teach students proper writing etiquette. Blount took this as a challenge to be ambidextrous. Even though her right hand became her primary writing hand, she maintained her ability to write with her left hand as well. She also taught herself to write without the use of her hands by holding a pencil with her teeth and feet. This skill was useful in her career later on, helping her teach others to operate without one or more limbs. After the sixth grade, there were no more educational resources for African American children in her community, forcing Blount to stop her education. The family then relocated north to New Jersey, where Blount remained self-taught and obtained her General Educational Diploma (GED). She attended Community Kennedy Memorial Hospital’s nurse’s programme, in Newark, New Jersey. After obtaining her Nursing degree, she continued her education at Panzer College of Physical Education and Hygiene in East Orange, New Jersey and became a physical therapist.
1969 – Blount embarked on a second career, in law enforcement, pursuing forensic science research for police departments in New Jersey and Virginia
1960s – she was assisting police departments in Norfolk, Virginia and Vineland, New Jersey, and later joined the Portsmouth, Virginia police department as a chief examiner
1977- the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) Forensic Science Laboratory invited Blount to join them in London for advanced studies in graphology. She was the first Black woman to train with Scotland Yard
Blount made numerous attempts to interest the Vrginia police department in her inventions but they declined, despite the devices’ evident beneficial impact. To promote the inventions, she appeared on the Philadelphia television show The Big Idea in 1953. Blount was the first AfricanAmerican woman to be on the show. No transcript is available, but it is reported she repeated that she had proved “A Black woman can invent something for the benefit of humankind.”
2008 – she undertook but was unable to complete one more project: founding a museum on the grounds of her old Virginia schoolhouse which had burned down, to commemorate the contributions of those who had studied there
1992 – Blount was honoured in 1992 by The American Academy of Physical Therapy, an African American focused physical therapy organization.
2005 – Honoured by the Virginia Women in History award
Parents – William Blount and Mary Blount
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Blount_Griffin
https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/changemakers/items/show/169
https://geekgals.co/2018/08/27/inspirational-quotes-female-inventors/
