Asthe early days of summer get underway, many Americans are looking for ways to beat the heat with modern comforts. If you’re reading this from an air-conditioned room, enjoying an ice-cold beverage from a refrigerated truck, watching your kids run through the sprinkler system on the front lawn, or joining family and friends for a scoop of ice cream, you may not realize these inventions didn’t always exist. They’re so interwoven into our society that people rarely consider where they come from. Yet the technology that keeps food and drinks cold over long distances, chills a room, and makes water activities possible on hot days is the result of the brilliance of Black American inventors.
Black scientists, engineers, and mechanics who worked throughout the 19th and 20th centuries laid the foundation for modern-day climate control and seasonal recreation that makes the summer heat bearable. They did so despite the barriers of Jim Crow segregation, banking discrimination, and exclusion from many universities, trade schools, and professional organizations during their lifetimes. Black inventors remain marginalized in broader historical discussions and are often omitted from many textbooks. Yet their creativity and genius forever changed how the nation keeps its cool.
Fredrick McKinely Jones revolutionized food transportation
Today, companies transporting perishable goods are commonplace. Few even bat an eye at the fact that people thousands of miles away from Florida, for instance, can enjoy oranges harvested there, or that consumers have easy access to eggs, meat, and milk. Yet companies didn’t always have the technology to make these products last, so they had to rely on ice or salt to maintain freshness. Fredrick McKinley Jones, a self-taught Black engineer from Covington, Kentucky, forever changed this dynamic. Orphaned at age 9, he overcame adversity and became a full-time mechanic by 14. During WWI, Jones served as an electrician, helping maintain lines of communication and repairing vehicles, and rose to the rank of sergeant.
In 1938, Jones invented the first mobile refrigeration unit, durable enough to transport perishable goods over long distances. Two years later, Jones developed the Model C, a front-mount unit designed for the exteriors of trucks, trains, and even ships. Alongside his business partner, Joseph Numero, he founded U.S. Thermo Control Company, later called Thermo King. During WWII, the U.S. Army deployed this technology across Europe to preserve life-saving medicine, rations, and blood for injured soldiers. Throughout his prolific career, Jones acquired over sixty patents, including a ticket-dispensing machine and a sound adapter for movie projectors that enhanced the quality and affordability of “sound-on-film,” marking a revolutionary shift away from silent films.
Despite the positive social change Jones sparked with his inventions, he faced racial adversity. Because Jim Crow laws throughout the South limited employment prospects for Black people, he often faced unemployment in his youth and had to perform menial roles. For instance, while he helped design successful race cars for a White auto shop owner, he was fired after driving them on local dirt tracks in Hallock, Minnesota, violating informal segregationist policies. During WWI, when Jones served in the military, the armed forces limited the positions available to Black soldiers. This is why it’s so remarkable that he rose to the rank of sergeant and was praised for his skills as an electrician and mechanic. While he faced economic barriers, his partnership with Joseph Numero helped him overcome some of them and make a lasting impact.
Alice H. Parker laid the foundation for modern-day HVAC technology
Alice H. Parker, a Black woman from Morristown, New Jersey, patented technology in 1919 that laid the foundation for the central heating and air conditioning we enjoy today. She conceived a “heating furnace” system that used natural gas to power heating furnaces, a clear departure from coal- or wood-based systems previously used to keep houses warm throughout the winter. Parker envisioned a network of pipes and passages running through various rooms of a home, the foundation for modern-day HVAC ductwork in homes and offices. This system relied on a series of mini furnaces connected to an air exchanger that distributed warm air to individual rooms. Her design pulled in cool air and pushed out warm air, enabling temperature control in each room and predating thermostat-based systems popular in the modern era.
Due to racism and sexism that limited prospects for Black women, very little is known about the life of Alice H. Parker. Yet there is clearly a public desire to learn more. For instance, conflicting photographs circulated online portray an unrelated White British woman as Parker, and others mistake her for Marie Van Brittan Brown, a dark-skinned Black woman who invented the first closed-circuit television home security system. Despite the popularity of certain viral images, no verifiable photos of her exist. Likewise, reports diverge on her education and occupation. Some articles claim she graduated from Howard University, while others describe her as a cook. Given this ambiguity, we know more about what Parker invented than who she was, including her marital status, whether she had children, and whether she remained in New Jersey throughout her lifetime.
What is clear is that Alice H. Parker patented critical technology, likely navigating the process alone. Due to racism in banking practices that limited resources for Black people and sexism, as women often needed a male cosigner to open an account, she never received the financial support to mass-produce and profit from the design. Still, her invention proved that gas was a safer alternative to coal and that multi-room heating was possible through individually controlled burners with valves, predating the use of thermostats. While white-owned companies, such as Carrier and Lennox, later developed systems based on Parker’s patented technology, she never received the wealth or recognition she deserved, making her a hidden figure.
David Nelson Crosthwait Jr. scaled commercial climate control
While Alice H. Parker’s 1919 gas-furnace invention conceptualized zone-controlled heating in homes, David Nelson Crosthwait Jr. scaled that technology, developing thermostats into automated systems for temperature management in commercial buildings. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, he attended Lincoln High School, an all-Black institution. He earned a full scholarship to Purdue University, where he excelled, earning a Bachelor of Science in 1913 and a Master of Engineering in 1920, becoming a pioneer in large-scale ventilation. Throughout his career, he obtained 39 U.S. patents and 80 international patents related to the regulation of gases, fluids, and heat.
In 1929, he patented a revolutionary sub-atmospheric steam system that distributed heat evenly across a vast network of pipelines. When paired with an automated thermostat that adjusted heat output based on external temperatures, his inventions brought climate control to Rockefeller Center’s iconic Radio City Music Hall in 1932, keeping thousands comfortable despite extreme weather outside. Perhaps his most noteworthy contribution was the differential vacuum pump, a device that helped control temperatures in high-rises without overheating boilers — a dangerous risk common throughout this period.
Crosthwait’s work fundamentally standardized airflow in large buildings, effectively bridging the gap between heating and cooling in the early HVAC industry. While Willis Carrier, a white engineer, is widely celebrated for inventing the mechanical air-cooling unit, that system could not function without the airflow and heat-transfer principles Crosthwait pioneered. From 1925 to 1930, while serving as director of research laboratories at the C.A. Dunham Company in Marshalltown, Iowa, he oversaw the development of industrial refrigeration and air-conditioning units. He later co-authored the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) guide, which sets global industry standards for ventilation and refrigeration systems.
For Crosthwait to succeed, he had to overcome the racist barriers of Jim Crow society. Black engineers were routinely denied entry to professional organizations, which excluded them from professional networks that benefited White engineers. Racist assumptions about Black inferiority posed a challenge for Black engineers, as their ideas were often met with skepticism rather than support. Throughout his career, Crosthwait sought accolades through corporate success and patent approvals. It wasn’t until 1971, the year Crosthwait retired, that he was welcomed as a full peer in the industry, becoming the first Black fellow in ASHRAE.
Joseph H. Smith set the standard for modern irrigation standards
One of the quintessential symbols of summer in America is the sprinkler system. Yet few realize that a Black man, Joseph H. Smith, patented the first rotary-head lawn sprinkler in 1897. Thanks to its spinning design, it evenly sprays water across a lawn. Before his invention, people had to drag heavy hoses and buckets, often wasting water in an effort to keep their lawns green. This technology was built on the work of another Black inventor, Thomas J. Martin, who in 1872 patented a ceiling-mounted fire extinguisher system that helped put out fires in homes and commercial buildings. Martin’s invention, which used pressurized pipes to distribute water overhead indoors in the event of a fire, laid the foundation for Smith’s later invention, which distributed water outdoors.
While Smith was born into slavery and, due to anti-literacy laws, couldn’t read or write in his early years, he taught himself after the Civil War and became a successful, independent mechanical engineer based in Washington, D.C. Smith’s inventions helped develop modern irrigation standards, which are still used today. After receiving his first patent, he upgraded the model by introducing an oscillating motion and received a second patent. During an era when Black people were locked out of educational, financial institutions, and professional organizations, his success in securing patents for his designs points to his resilience and determination. Still, given the time he lived in, he never knew his date of birth or where he was born, and very little is known about his personal life.
Lonnie Johnson: The aerospace engineer behind the “Super Soaker”
Another invention that helped cool off the nation was the Super Soaker, a water gun invented by Lonnie Johnson, an aerospace engineer who revolutionized the toy industry. Born in 1949 in Alabama, “The Professor,” as his friends would later call him, earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in nuclear engineering from Tuskegee University. The toy design, originally patented as a “squirt gun” in 1986, came to him while he was experimenting with an eco- friendly heat pump that squirted water across the room. Initially, toy companies rejected his ideas, but in 1989, Johnson licensed the design to Larami Corporation. The following year, his invention hit the shelves as “Power Drencher,” but by 199,1 it was rebranded as the “Super Soaker.” While previous designs only squeezed water out over a short distance with a weak stream, Johnson’s invention, which included a pressurized reservoir chamber, produced a strong, high-velocity blast of water that traveled more than 40 feet, helping popularize water gun fights on hot days.
Throughout his career, Lonnie Johnson worked as an aerospace engineer, at times on classified projects. Before creating the Super Soaker, he worked in the U. S. Air Force and at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His prolific career includes designing a fault-protection system for the Galileo spacecraft, enabling it to operate independently in the event of a mechanical failure while millions of miles from Earth. He also created a backup system to ensure a secondary system would take over if radiation destroyed the computer chips necessary for the Cassini Mission.
As a Black man from the Jim Crow South, he endured many of the barriers associated with that era, witnessing racial segregation firsthand. A high school guidance counselor once told him he should settle for becoming a technician rather than an engineer. Thankfully, this didn’t kill his dream. While in high school, Johnson became the only Black person to enter a regional science fair at the University of Alabama and won for his design, a compressed-air robot he named “Linex.” Lonnie Johnson made substantial contributions to the field of mechanical engineering but was initially shortchanged on agreed- upon royalties for his Super Soaker design. Finally, in 2013, he won $72.9. million in a settlement with Hasbro. “In spite of the things that have been perpetuated on my race… we succeed anyway, to a very large extent. We just need to realize what we’re capable of,” he noted.
Alfred L. Cralle — The mechanics behind the ice cream scoop
Another invention that helps Americans beat the heat is the ice cream scoop. Still, few realize that this iconic tool was patented in 1897 by Alfred L. Cralle, a Black man born in Kenbridge, Virginia, the year after the Civil War. His father taught him carpentry, but he also received a formal education in Washington, D.C., where he attended Wayland Theological Seminary, an institution established to educate free Black people. Later, he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a porter. Noticing that employees at Markell Brothers drugstore struggled to serve ice cream to customers with basic utensils, he designed a device, originally called an “ice-cream mold and disher,” that could be used with one hand. Because the ice cream scoop was durable and inexpensive to manufacture, it became a sensation, and workers began serving ice cream to customers without making a mess.
It’s hard to imagine a summer without a scoop of ice cream, yet given the racism against Black people, it’s rare that people associate this mechanical design with the Black inventor who created it. Black inventors during this period were often denied mainstream engineering roles, so despite his ingenious design, Cralle worked mostly as a porter at the St. Charles Hotel and at Markell Brothers drugstore. By serving as an assistant manager at the Afro-American Financial, Accumulating, Merchandise and Business Association, he had access to support and resources denied by whites-only trade organizations and financial institutions. Still, he was denied the wealth associated with this invention, even as white-owned manufacturing companies profited greatly from his design. Next time you have a scoop of ice cream, remember that a Black inventor who faced discrimination designed it.
It’s easy to take modern-day comforts for granted, but more Americans should learn about Black inventors who helped to cool the nation. From Fredrick McKinley Jones, whose invention enabled refrigerated trucks to transport perishable food over long distances, to Alice H. Parker and David Nelson Crosthwait, Jr., whose work advanced technologies that control temperatures in homes and commercial buildings, their contributions are something we can feel and experience daily. Whether we’re reflecting on Lonnie Johnson, who designed the iconic summer toy, the Super Soaker, or Alfred L. Cralle, who engineered the modern ice cream scoop, their inventions have become synonymous with our summer routines and deserve recognition.
Black inventors faced racist barriers, such as exclusion from financial and educational institutions and professional erasure. Despite traditional forms of support being denied, their accomplishments are a lasting testament to the resilience of Black Americans, who are determined to improve the quality of life for the entire nation. It’s ironic that the same country that often dismisses the intelligence of Black people benefits from their inventions. And in a political climate where black history is often suppressed or marginalized within educational curricula, learning about and sharing these contributions is essential work in chipping away at lasting racial stereotypes. Next time you use some of these inventions to find relief from the summer heat, take a moment to consider the hidden figures who engineered the comfort that we all enjoy.