African American Achievers in Science, Medicine, and Technology

Dr. George F. Grant

1800s
Inventor of Cleft Palate Corrective Device
Inventor of the Golf Tee; Boston Dentist; DDS. Harvard 1870
Harvard Dental School Professor; Cleft Palate Expert:

Golfer, dentist, Dr. G.F.G.
  earned a Harvard dental degree
    Then he took one step more
      and opened another academic door
         by teaching at Harvard’s Dental School,
         thereby breaking an unwritten rule.

Dr. G’s cleft palate disorder expertise.
  helped patients speak clearly with ease
    Being a golf devotee Dr. G.
      invented the sandless golf tee,
         a wooden peg, a rather small thing
           that changed the serious golfer’s swing.

Imagine this everyday ancient scene:.
  golfers trying to be focused and serene
    carrying large boxes of wet sand
      for making a sand tee by hand.
         This was devotion, would you agree?
           It was time for a tee by Dr. G.!

The game of golf has not been the same.
  since Dr. G. improved his own game
    with a new wooden tee design
      and received a patent in 1899.
         Now thanks to young, champion Tiger Woods
           the tee is known in many neighborhoods.

Sources

Gibbs, C.R. Black Inventors from Africa to America. (Silver Spring Maryland: Three Dimensional Publishing Company, 1999), p. 103, 232.

Hayden, Robert C. 11 African American Doctors. (Frederick, MD: Twenty-First Century Books. 1992), p.16

Sammons, Vivian Ovelton. Blacks in Science and Medicine. (New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. 1990), p.104

U.S. Patent Office Microfilm. George F. Grant. No. 638,920. December 12, 1899 Great Lakes Patent and Trademark Center Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan.