Samuel Raymond Scottron - The Black Herald
Born in February 1841 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Samuel Raymond Scottron was a businessman, inventor, and active public speaker and writer who promoted improving race relations through racial harmony and fairness and was a Brooklyn Board of Education member. He fought to end slavery in Cuba and Puerto Rico by serving as the Chairman of the Cuban Anti-Slavery Committee, which met at the Cooper Institute. He is responsible for multiple patents for the curtain rod. Still, he is best known for his first invention, the "Scottron Adjustable Mirror" patent #76,253, received March 31st, 1868, and described as "mirrors so arranged opposite each other as to give the view of every side at once." New, practical, and simple – "We can see ourselves as others see us."
Scottron moved with his family to New York City as a child, where he completed grammar school and would later become the sutler for the 3rd United States Colored Infantry during the American civil war. He would eventually receive his engineering degree from Cooper Union in 1878 and would later operate grocery stores in Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida, and then a barber shop in Springfield, Massachusetts. He worked as a traveling salesman for an import-export business located in lower Manhattan while continuing to patent his inventions. He would begin to self-manufacture the products derived from his patents by the late 1880s. His company, the Scottron Manufacturing Company, was located at 98th Monroe Street in Brooklyn, New York.
Belongs to the Cooper Union Alumni Society and the Brooklyn Academy of Sciences; both memberships confirmed his reputation as a scientist.
In 1879 he was elected grand secretary general of its supreme council of the United States and held the post for several years.
An advertisement for Scottron Manufacturing Company in the Colored American Magazine for October 7, 1904, noted that the company made pedestals, tabourettes, lamp columns, and lamp and vase bodies. For these items they used imitation onyx, agate, fossil wood, and various pottery finishes from the United States and abroad.
Ohio History Connection: African Americans in Ohio
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Brooklyn Public Library: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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