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8/51
1857
Mechanizing the Cotton Harvest
Pike County, Mississippi
Ned invented a cotton scraper that eased labor while increasing productivity. His invention was manufactured by his enslaver and profitable without patent protection because enslaver, Oscar J.E. Stuart, was denied the patent by the Secretary of the interior and Commissioner of Patents. Stuart used the advertisement of Ned’s invention to reveal “the abolition cry that slavery dwarfs the mind of the Negro” as a lie.
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