 Fred Jones
Inventor Fred McKinley Jones
is certainly one of the most important Black inventors ever based on
the sheer number of inventions he formulated as well as their diversity. Fred Jones was born on May 17, 1893 in Covington, Kentucky. His father was a white railroad worker of Irish descent and his mother was Black. Looking for work, Jones often aided
local doctors by driving them around for housecalls during the winter
season. When navigation through the snow proved difficult, Fred attached
skis to the undercarriage of an old airplane body and attached an airplane
propeller to a motor and soon whisked around town a high speeds in his
new snowmachine.  In 1939 Fred and Joe Numero received a patent for the vehicle air-conditioning device which would later be called a Thermo King. This product revolutionized several industries including shipping and grocery businesses. Grocery chains were now able to import and export products which previously could only have been shipped as canned goods. Thus, the frozen food industry was created and the world saw the emergence of the "supermarket." Fred came up with a new idea - an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters. Fred applied for and received a patent for this device in June of 1939 and the patent rights were eventually sold to RCA. Jones died on February 21, 1961 and was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology, one of the greatest honors an inventor could receive. Jones was the first Black inventor to ever receive such an honor.
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