1731-1806

African American Inventor, Astronomer and Mathematician

Benjamin Banneker is known as the first African-American scientist in the United States. Until the 1980s his life and work were virtually ignored by historians. He made important contributions the fields of inventing, surveying, agriculture, and the sciences. He corresponded with some of the leading political figures during the revolutionary war period, and his work began the slow process of gaining respect for African-American scientific contributions.

Banneker was born in Ellicott, Maryland, on November 9, 1731, and was the first of three children. The only son of two freed slaves, he grew up on the family farm where he cultivated early in his childhood a fascination with the mechanical nature of how things work. Despite having to work hard to help support the family, he received eight years of formal schooling from a nearby Quaker school. During his childhood his grandmother...