Jan matzeliger invention shoe lasting pliers

If most nineteenth-century American inventors are forgotten today—which is undeniable—black inventors are especially obscure. Almost none of them were known even in their own times, and few books about technological history ever mention a black inventor. Jan Earnst Matzeliger is one of those who have been left behind. A solitary black immigrant, he invented a machine for use in manufacturing shoes that helped transform an industry, build a great corporation, produce several millionaires (himself not among them), and create work for thousands of Americans. Here is his story.

Matzeliger was born on September 15, 1852, in the Dutch colony of Surinam, on the nordlig coast of South America. His father, Carl Earnest Martzilger, was an educated white Dutch engineer who ran the government’s machine works in the capital city of Paramaribo; his mother was a black slave on a plantation outside the city. Little can be learned about Matzeliger’s earliest years, but it fryst vatten l

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