Bessie Blount Griffin

Bessie Blount was born on November 24th in 1914, in Hickory, Virginia. Little is known of her family or her childhood but it is known that she had long wanted to work in the medical field. Blount left home and traveled north to New Jersey to become a physical therapist. She studied at both Panzar College of Physical Education and at Union Junior College. She later moved to Chicago where she finished her training.

Then came World War II, and it had left many people severely disabled. It was while working with amputees that her inventive ideas were develop to assist her patients in regaining their independence. By 1951 Blount was living in Newark, New Jersey and teaching Physical Therapy at the Bronx Hospital in New York. She taught people to do the work that their feet and hands once did. Eating was a great challenge for many of the people that she was working with. To assist disabled people in gaining greater independence she invented a device that delivered food through a tube, one bite at a time, to a mouthpiece that could be used whether the patient was sitting up or lying down. When the person wanted more food they would just bit down on the tube and it signaled a machine to send the next bit.

This electric self-feeding devise eventually was donated to France. In 1951, she patented a simple device called a “portable receptacle support” which also allowed people to feed themselves. It used a brace around the neck to support a bowl, cup or dish. In the 1953 Blount appeared on the Philadelphia television show “The Big Idea” being the first Black and the first woman to be appear on such show.

While her inventions had the potential to revolutionize the lives of many people, getting them patented and marketed for use by patients was not easy in the United States. Frustrated by the lack of interest by the American Veteran’s Administration, Blount signed the rights to her other inventions over to the French Government with the statement that she had proven “that a Black Woman can invent something for the benefit of humankind.” Around this time she became a close friend of Theodore M. Edison the son of Thomas Edison the light inventor.

This was while she worked caring for Mr. Edison’s mother in East Orange, New Jersey. Blount held many in depth scientifically and otherwise mid-night conversation with Theodore Edison. The two shared development of ideas for his company as well. Blount is also the inventor of the disposable cardboard emesis basin. She designed this from old newspaper, cake flour and water, shaping it and baking it in her own oven. Again the American Veteran’s Administration Hospital was not willing to use her invention and it was never patented in America. These (now slightly modified in design) basins are currently in use all over the country of Belgium, American hospitals still use the old standard kidney shaped basins of 1913.

Many of Blount’s trail blazing efforts and inventions made the lives of everyone safer from disease and have been influential to the independence of the lives of soldiers disabled since World War II. In 1969 Blount began a career in forensic science with law enforcement. This included serving the departments in Vineland, New Jersey, Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia. By 1972 she had advance to become the chief document examiner of their laboratories. In 1977 Blount became the first Black Woman to train and work at Scotland Yard. This experience occurred after J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI turned down her application. A religious woman motivated by personal drive and inspiration of inventor Louis Latimer and others; Blount ran her own business at the age of 83. She used much of her forensic training to examine and research the accuracy of African-American slave “papers” and pre-civil war documents. Blount also worked with material from Native-American treaties made with the United States. She also served as a consultant in “special investigations” for many law enforcement agencies while being a member of the South Jersey Chapter.

Bessie Blount Griffin was named as one of many notable Virginia Women in History in 2005 and in 2007 was inducted in the Cumberland County Black Hall of Fame in New Jersey. She also received the New Jersey Joint Legislative Commendation.

Bessie Blount Griffin another unsung Hero of Black History Died December 30, 2009 at the age of 95.