A Dream Begins

This chapter examines the Carthage, NC, childhood of African American inventor and entrepreneur Lucean Arthur Headen, with special attention paid to the social networks Headen’s family forged and to the mentors who inspired him to become an inventor. It describes the influence of former slave artisans, among them his grandfather, a wheelwright for the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company, and his great-uncle, a nationally known toolmaker, who schooled him in mechanics; his father, a sawmill owner, who sparked his entrepreneurial ambitions; and aunts and uncles active in the Presbyterian Church and Republican Party, who offered important social connections. Finally, it describes the economic strategy demonstrated for Headen by Rev. Henry D. Wood, who built a diverse coalition of supporters to finance the construction of John Hall Presbyterian Church and Dayton Academy (the church and school Headen attended). Headen later adapted this coalition-building model to finance his first inventions and business efforts.

A Dream Becomes a Company

Chapter 6 describes Headen’s successful application of Wood’s “coalition economics” to the automotive industry. Focusing on the Headen Motor Company, which Headen founded in Chicago in 1921, the chapter describes his amassing of a diverse coalition to finance the effort. Attracting investors, black and white, male and female, Northern and Southern, his coalition included business owners, ministers, political figures, journalists, fraternal and civic leaders, club women, and auto racing enthusiasts. Prominent members included national figures Robert S. Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender, former Carolina Congressman George Washington Murray, and Florida educator Blanche Armwood Beatty. The chapter also addresses Headen’s emergence as a leading proponent of transportation technologies in the black press; his technological vision; his growing interest in dirt-track racing; and his establishment in 1924 of the Afro-American Automobile Association, a motorist’s support organization.

A Dream Begins Anew

Chapter 8 describes Headen’s move in 1925 to Albany, Georgia, where he established the Headen Motor Car Company and began the engine work that led to his first patent. The chapter explores the coalition he built in Albany, which comprised black beauty salon owner and clubwoman Emma V. Wynn and her husband fraternal leader and café owner William Wynn; members of the white Chamber of Commerce; black nationalist attorney Henry V. Plummer; and auto enthusiast Edward E. Harris. The chapter also documents Headen’s rise as an inventor, his relationship with white railroad engineer Henry A. Petit (co-inventor on his first patent), and his move away from the coalition model in favor of individual investors, including patent speculator George P. Koelliker and financier George D. Hamilton. The chapter places Headen’s activities in the context of growing African American automobility, the history of bi-fuel engines, and the existing avenues of funding for independent inventors.

A Dream Is Deferred

This chapter addresses the political and economic factors that thwarted Headen’s first attempts to follow his ambitions. It discusses his work as a Pullman porter in 1900-1901, and later as a student from 1901-1903 at Albion Academy, an advanced boarding school in Franklinton, NC, founded by the Presbyterian Church. Describing the faculty and student life at Albion, and Headen’s personal record there, it probes how Albion helped Headen navigate the rising violence and segregation of the Jim Crow era and keep his ambitions alive. The chapter also discusses Headen’s marriage in 1903 and his decision to become part of African American migration out of the South that same year.

A Dream Finds Allies

Chapter 5 examines Headen’s embrace of Henry Wood’s coalition strategy, exploring how he adapted Wood’s model to promote an anti-submarine device he invented during World War I. To promote the device, which refracted light to render submarine chasers invisible, Headen assembled a broad interracial coalition that drew from Chicago’s business, religious, entertainment, political, and academic communities. Included were individuals as diverse as Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, for whom Headen worked as a chauffeur; philanthropists Nettie Fowler McCormick and Julius Rosenwald; black orchestra leader Joe Jordan; white banker George Liebrandt; University of Chicago professor Harvey Lemon; white patent lawyer Wilmot C. Hawkins; black minister Archibald J. Carey; and later Golden Gate Bridge constructor Joseph B. Strauss. The chapter documents how this coalition secured an audience for Headen with the U.S. Naval Consulting Board and the British Admiralty’s Board of Invention and Research (after 1918 the Department of Experimental Research, or DER). It also describes subsequent work Headen completed for the British Shipping Ministry, the positive assessment of his device by the DER, and the project’s languishing upon the war’s sudden end.

A Dream Seeks a Path

Chapter 3 describes Headen’s life in Jersey City, NJ, from 1903 to 1911, a period in which he worked as a Pullman porter and as a dining car waiter for the Erie Railroad. It documents his life as a trainman, his growing interest in aviation, his frustrations at being locked out of skilled work, and his initial forays into invention. The chapter examines how Headen’s wife, Tena Drye Headen, and other African American migrants active in Lafayette Presbyterian Church and the Railroad Porters’ and Waiters’ Voluntary Subscription Fund, expanded social networks critical to Headen, and on the specific strategies that Headen observed other African American inventors employ to circumvent segregation and raise capital in a time when funding for independent inventors was waning.

Introduction

The Introduction provides an overview of the life of early African American inventor, aviator, auto racer, engineer, and entrepreneur, Lucean Arthur Headen, It also prefaces the biography’s main themes, including Headen’s childhood influences; the obstacles he faced as an African American independent inventor, including segregation and the increasing corporatization of invention; the social networks on which he relied to build his career; the “coalition economics” strategy he employed to succeed; his emigration to England in 1931 and his career there until his death in 1957; his legacy as a designer of automotive engine improvements and anti-icing methods for aircraft; and his role as a transportation technology promoter.

Epilogue

The epilogue reflects on what invention meant to Headen and to the larger artisanal class from which he came and examines his legacy. Addressed are his influence on other African American transportation technology pioneers, his encouragement of mechanization among British farmers, the role of his bi-fuel engine improvements in supporting the British war effort in World War II, and his long-term influence on engine designs and on anti-icing technologies for air and rotor craft, turbine engines, and wind turbines. The epilogue also probes historiographical questions illuminated by Headen’s story, including the nature of African American automobility in the 1920s, specifically the participation of black beauty culturalists as investors and the automobile’s role in expanding African American social networks; the influence of early religious leaders on the business strategies of African American entrepreneurs; and the implications that social networks carry for personal success and for future racial advancement.

Dreams Collide

Chapter 7 describes Headen’s difficulties expanding his coalition strategy as he moved from auto manufacturing to auto racing in the mid-1920s. Documented are his reconfiguration of the Afro-American Automobile Association to focus on dirt-track racing; his career as an auto racer and race promoter; and internal rifts within his coalition based on gender, professional competition, and religious and political differences. The chapter explores defections from the coalition by women and religious figures, upset over the switch from a business model dedicated to racial advancement to a track culture steeped in profanity, alcohol, and danger; departures by political conservatives upset over the selection of a prominent black nationalist as the Association’s publicist; and Headen’s rejection by fellow race organizers competing directly with him for audiences. These internal conflicts, which eventually splintered both the Association and Headen’s marriage, ultimately revealed the limits of the “coalition economics” model.

A Dream Takes Flight

Chapter 4 describes Headen’s experiences as an early aviator. It probes his decision to seek flying lessons in 1911 at the Aeronautical Society of New York; his relationship with his instructor (François Raiche); and the reception he received as an exhibition pilot in 1912. The chapter notes the various funding strategies Headen employed as he attempted to promote his aviation career and documents the conflicts he experienced with a rival black aviator, promoters, white reporters, writers for the black press, and back audiences in Chicago and St. Louis. The chapter interprets his experiences within the dual contexts of race and emerging attempts to regulate and professionalize flying.