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Year: 1896​

Who: Charles Brooks

Where: Newark, NJ​

What: Charles Brooks, an innovative inventor from Newark, New Jersey, is best known for designing and patenting an improved street sweeper on March 17, 1896. Before his invention, streets were cleaned manually by workers using brooms and dustpans. Brooks' design featured a truck equipped with revolving brushes that efficiently swept debris into a receptacle, streamlining the process and significantly reducing labor. His invention also included interchangeable scrapers for snow removal during winter, making it versatile for year-round use.

In addition to the street sweeper, Brooks designed an improved refuse receptacle for storing collected garbage and a wheel-drive mechanism to automate the brush and scraper operations. Although it's unclear whether his design was ever mass-produced, his invention marked a major advancement in urban sanitation.

Brooks also contributed to other areas of daily life, such as patenting a ticket punch on October 31, 1893. His version featured a built-in receptacle that collected the punched-out paper bits, preventing litter. While ticket punches already existed, Brooks’ improvement helped reduce mess in public spaces, and the concept of a chad-collecting receptacle is still used in similar tools today.

Sources:

Websites:

Books:

  • Foy, D. (1998). Great discoveries and inventions by African-Americans (Vol. 1, 2nd ed.). Apu Pub Group

Address

Johns Hopkins University
2800 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

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