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Tue, 01.07.1890

A Fountain Pen Patent is Awarded to a Black Man

On this date, in 1890, William B. Purvis was awarded a fountain pen, patent #419065.

Purvis was from Philadelphia and obtained his first patent on a paper bag device on April 25th, 1882. Most of Purvis's sixteen patients were sold to the Union Paper Bag Company of New York.

Reference:

USPO.gov

Global Black Inventors.com

Created Equal The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators
By James Michael Brodie
Copyright 1993, by Bill Adler Books, Inc.
William Morrow and Co. Inc., New York
ISBN 0-688-11536-5

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
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P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313

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