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This newspaper page contains 5 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Location
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States of America
Date
Feb 05, 1990
Page
5
The Mini Page for Black History Month highlights African American inventors who struggled for recognition. It notes many received little or no credit while contributing significantly to American know-how.
The piece notes African slaves brought farming, ironwork, cloth making, medicine, fishing, and other know how to America, shaping early American industry and daily life. It emphasizes skilled labor as a legacy of enslaved people and their contributions.
The text notes a plant named after slave Quassi used to treat fever and mentions African Americans’ use of herbs for healing. It references slave emancipation when cures proved effective and credits The Anacostia Museum Smithsonian for assistance with the issue and an exhibit on African American invention running through May 1990.
In 1721 Boston faced a deadly smallpox outbreak that killed many. A slave named Onesimus advised his owner Cotton Mather to use material from an infected person on a healthy cut to immunize. Doctors initially rejected the idea due to its source, delaying adoption of the method.
Text notes how enslaved Africans in South Carolina used woven baskets to separate rice by wind and gravity, explains the banjo’s African roots, mentions instruments like the xylophone, and attributes the pictured banjo to African craftsmanship.
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