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Meet the American who taught the Tuskegee Airmen to fly: Pioneer pilot Charles ‘Chief’ Anderson
The Tuskegee Airmen soar across American military lore nearly 80 years after victory in World War II.
The heroic U.S Army Air Corps pilots battled for equality at home before they battled Nazis in the skies over Europe.
The unit of African American pilots in the segregated Army earned their wings under the tutelage of pioneering pilot Charles A. Anderson.
Dubbed “Chief” by his students, he was the lead flight instructor at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
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He put the wind beneath the wings of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, only after fighting for the right to fly on his own a decade earlier.
“His reputation was that he expected a lot out of us,” World War II veteran and retired Lt. Col. George Hardy, 97, told Fox News Digital.
Charles “Chief” Anderson put the wind beneath the wings of the Tuskegee Airmen. He taught himself to fly in the 1920s — and became chief flight instructor at the Tuskegee Institute in World War II.
(Air Force Historical Research Agency)
“He learned to fly through personal determination. That’s what we admired about him. He did a great job of running things.”
Hardy is one of three known surviving Tuskegee Airmen who flew fighter planes in World War II. He’s still a legend today, skydiving in his 90s and taking friends parasailing on the Gulf of Mexico near his home in Sarasota, Florida.
“Anderson learned to fly through personal determination. That’s what we admired about him.” — Tuskegee Airman George Hardy
He stands among the many legendary figures to emerge from the famous unit, trained to fly and fight under a system devised and led by self-taught pilot Chief Anderson.
Hardy flew legendary “Red Tail” P-51 Mustang fighter planes in World War II — the aircraft earning the name from the crimson rudder that denoted the 332nd Fighter Group. Americans know the 332nd and the Red Tails today as the most famous of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Charles “Chief” Anderson was the first licensed Black commercial pilot in America in 1932. He was later hired to be the lead flight instructor at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in World War II.
(Air Force Historical Research Agency)
Hardy later piloted giant B-29 bombers during the Korean War and C-119 gunships in Vietnam.
He retired in 1972 after a 30-year military career.
“I had never even driven an automobile before I got to Tuskegee,” Hardy said.
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His inexperience is a testament to the challenges faced by Anderson. He took hundreds of young men and instilled in them the spirit to fly — at a time when many people thought they couldn’t do so because of the color of their skin.
“The airplane was invented in 1903, and the military acquired its first airplanes and pilots in 1909, but Black men were not allowed to be pilots in the American military until the 1940s,” writes historian Daniel Haulman in his new book, “Misconceptions About The Tuskegee Airmen,” slated for release on Feb. 15.
Anderson was not a military man. The nickname “Chief” was an accolade accorded the civilian by his Army students.
Some 14,000 Tuskegee Airmen served in World War II, including hundreds of its now-legendary fighter pilots.
(Tuskegee University Archives)
“Chief Anderson was liked and highly respected by his men,” Tuskegee University archivist Dana Chandler told Fox News Digital.
“He instilled in them a belief that they could succeed no matter the obstacles.”
Born to fly
Charles Alfred Anderson Sr. was born on Feb. 9, 1907 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to Iverson and Janie Anderson.
Like many American boys of his era, he was thrilled by the emergence of flight and by the new image of daredevil pilots spiraling through the skies across America in the first decades of the 20th century.
Denied opportunities to take flying lessons because he was African American, he blazed his own path into the wild blue yonder.
First lady Eleanor Roosevelt supported the Civilian Pilot Training Program and the War Training Service. She’s pictured here in a Piper J-3 Cub trainer with Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson, a pioneer Black aviator and instructor at Tuskegee Institute.
(U.S. Air Force photo)
Anderson saved money — and borrowed more from friends and family — to buy an airplane at age 22.
He soon traded the use of his plane for lessons from a local pilot named Russell Thaw. He found another ally in his quest to fly — an unlikely ally.
Ernst Buehl flew airplanes for the German army in World War I before immigrating to the United States in 1920. He took Anderson under his wing, unaware the young man would soon inspire American pilots in the Second World War.
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Anderson earned a commercial pilot license in 1932. He’s believed to be the first African American commercial pilot in the United States.
Freed by flight, he was soon soaring across the nation.
Along with physician and benefactor Dr. Albert Forsythe, Anderson became the first Black pilot to crisscross the United States by air in 1933.
George Hardy flew with the 99th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, the Tuskegee Airmen, in 1945. He later flew bombers in Korea and fixed-wing gunships in Vietnam. Charles Anderson “did a great job of running things,” Hardy, who is now 97 years old, told Fox News Digital.
(Courtesy CAF Rise Above via U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama)
“The Anderson-Forsythe long-distance flights attracted worldwide attention and greatly popularized aviation in the African American community,” the African American Registry reports on its website.
“Much of their navigation on the journey was done by reading a simple roadmap. The daring pair also made a long-distance flight to Canada. They later staged an elaborate Pan American Goodwill Tour of the Caribbean in their plane, ‘The Spirit of Booker T. Washington.’”
The Tuskegee Institute hired Anderson to head its Civilian Pilot Training program in 1940.
Soon the Army was calling on Tuskegee and Anderson to head its training program for Black military pilots.
“I had the fun of going up in one of the tiny training planes with the head instructor.” — first lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Anderson in March 1941 unexpectedly found one of the most famous people in the world as a passenger.
“We went out to the aviation field, where a Civil Aeronautics unit for the teaching of colored pilots is in full swing,” first lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote on April 1, 1941, in her nationally syndicated “My Day” column.
“They have advanced training here, and some of the students went up and did acrobatic flying for us. These boys are good pilots. I had the fun of going up in one of the tiny training planes with the head instructor, and seeing this interesting countryside from the air.”
The brief encounter of flying Mrs. Roosevelt over Alabama made Anderson one of the most famous pilots in America. It also helped forge a national reputation for the Tuskegee Airmen — a reputation that would soon be steeled under fire in the skies over Europe.
The Red Tails’ ‘box score’
Anderson’s Tuskegee Airmen arrived in Europe in the spring of 1943. The famed 332nd Fighter Group was based in Ramatelli, Italy.
The Tuskegee Airmen quickly proved that Black pilots were more than fit for combat.
The U.S. Army Air Corps 332nd Fighter Group, more commonly known as the Tuskegee Airmen, flew P-51 Mustang fighter planes with distinct red tails to signify their unit.
(Tuskegee University Archives)
Their main mission was to escort Allied bombers in raids over German targets across Europe — dangerous missions flown in the face of anti-aircraft fire from the ground and attacks from enemy fighter planes in the air.
“The Tuskegee Airmen flew more than 15,000 sorties between May 1943 and June 1945,” reports the National World War II Museum.
“Bomber crews often requested to be escorted by these ‘Red Tails.'”
“The Red Tails destroyed or damaged 409 German aircraft; 739 locomotives and train cars; 40 barges and boats; even one enemy destroyer.” — U.S. Air Force
Once-classified documents provided to Fox News Digital by the Air Force Historical Research Agency show the “box scores for the Red Tails” — a trail of destruction of Nazi forces left by the Tuskegee Airmen.
The Red Tails destroyed or damaged 409 German aircraft in the air (136) or on the ground (273); 739 locomotives and other train cars damaged or destroyed; 40 barges and boats; even one enemy warship, a destroyer.
Tuskegee airmen exiting the parachute room, Ramitelli, Italy, in March 1945. Left to right, Richard S. “Rip” Harder, Brooklyn, New York; unidentified airman; Thurston L. Gaines, Jr., Freeport, New York; Newman C. Golden, Cincinnati, Ohio; Wendell M. Lucas, Fairmont Heights, Maryland. Photo by Toni Frissell Collection (Library of Congress).
(Tuskegee University Archives)
The Tuskegee Airmen faced perhaps their most daunting challenge on March 25, 1945, escorting American bombers all the way from Italy to Berlin. It was a dangerous mission of nearly 1,000 miles each way.
The American air armada was attacked that day by German ME-262 aircraft — the world’s first jet fighters. They were faster and more maneuverable than anything in the Army Air Corps.
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“We couldn’t keep up with them,” Hardy, the 97-year-old Tuskegee Airman, told Fox News Digital.
Still, his unit of prop planes shot down three German jet fighters that day.
A German Messerschmitt 262A-1 jet-propelled fighter at the Rheinmain Airport, near Frankfurt, Germany, 1945. The Tuskegee Airmen shot down three ME-262s in their raid over Berlin in Mach 1945, despite its superior speed and dexterity. The first jet-propelled plane captured intact, it was flown over Allied lines and surrendered by its pilot who was supposed to be testing it at the time.
(PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
One of the men on the Berlin mission, Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., went on to become the first brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force (formed from the Army Air Corps in 1947).
His father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., had already broken down barriers as the first brigadier general in the U.S. Army.
Just 66 Tuskegee Airmen were lost in combat in World War II.
Despite the carnage inflicted on enemy forces, just 66 Tuskegee Airmen were lost in combat in World War II.
“They had one of the lowest loss records of any escort fighter group,” says the National World War II Museum.
Tuskegee’s daring fighter pilots draw all the popular acclaim today, but were only one part of the story.
A once-classified “box score” shows the deadly effect on German forces inflicted by the Tuskegee Airmen “Red Tails.”
(Air Force Historical Research Agency)
A mere 552 Tuskegee Airmen flew fighter planes in World War II, yet 14,000 served — among them bomber crews, reconnaissance plane pilots, grounds crew and various other support staff, notes Tuskegee Airmen historian Haulman.
“Americans should remember Chief Anderson as somebody who personally demonstrated the potential of Black pilots and who was also instrumental in training the Tuskegee Airmen to fly,” he said.
Legacy of American unity
Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson died on April 13, 1996, in Tuskegee. He was 89 years old. He’s buried in Greenwood Cemetery.
“Remaining in Tuskegee after the war, Anderson continued to provide flight instruction at Moton Field, which remains an active airport and is the location of the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site,” reports the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Tuskegee Airmen instructor Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson was honored with a stamp by the U.S. Postal Service in 2014.
(United States Postal Service)
“In 1967, Anderson co-founded Negro Aviation International, an association for Black pilots.”
He joined the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame in 1991. Moton Field, where hundreds of war pilots learned to fly under his tutelage, is now Tuskegee Moton Field Municipal Airport.
“This historical landmark is a rich backdrop to a modern, state-of-the-art facility providing top-notch training and education, while serving as an economic engine for the region,” says the City of Tuskegee online.
Tales of the Tuskegee Airmen will be told to future generations.
Anderson lived long enough to see the story of the men he introduced to flying immortalized in the 1995 movie “The Tuskegee Airmen,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lawrence Fishburne.
The dramatic silver screen tale brought the exploits of the Red Tail warriors to a new generation of grateful Americans. They’ve since been honored in many other depictions in books and on screen.
The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in Anderson’s honor at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Alabama in 2014.
Tuskegee Airman and retired Lt. Col. George Hardy with children at Robert L. Taylor Community Complex in Sarasota, Florida, in 2013.
(Courtesy CAF Rise Above via U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama)
Tales of the Tuskegee Airmen will be told to future generations.
Lt. Col. Hardy recently returned from Hollywood, where he was recorded in digital detail for a pending exhibit at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
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“We worked together and we depended on each other,” said Hardy. “I listened to my instructors, I learned a lot and did the best I could. I think I was successful. The group was successful.”
“The U.S. military was fully integrated 1948, just three years after his Tuskegee Airmen flew their final combat mission.”
Anderson’s greatest contribution to the nation was helping prove old stereotypes wrong.
The U.S. military was fully integrated 1948, just three years after his Tuskegee Airmen flew their final combat mission.
The military today may provide the most accurate depiction of the American people — more diverse than the halls of Congress, more integrated than the ivory towers of academia.
Minnesota, South St Paul. Fleming Field Minnesota Wing CAF Air Show, North American P-51C Tuskegee Airmen Red Tail and T-34C Turbo Mentor.
(Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“What made the Tuskegee Airmen ultimately succeed was the ability to overcome the obstacles they faced with hard work and dedication,” LaVone Kay, spokesperson for Commemorative Air Force Rise Above, told Fox News Digital.
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Her organization is devoted to providing American children with life lessons through the example of Anderson’s Red Tail fighters of World War II.
“Life can be unfair,” she added. “But if children believe in themselves, stay focused and work hard, they will overcome obstacles and achieve excellence, just like the Tuskegee Airmen.”
To read more stories in this unique “Meet the American Who…” series from Fox News Digital, click here.
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Meet the American who is the ‘true father of baseball,’ New York City physician Daniel ‘Doc’ Adams
Daniel “Doc” Adams nurtured baseball in its formative years of the mid-1800s as if it were his only child.
He laid down the laws of baseball in its infancy, guiding the sport the rest of its days.
He taught important life skills to the game, from playing shortstop to umpiring — all essential to its growth.
He provided for baseball when it was needy, making the earliest bats and balls so that others could enjoy the game he loved as his own.
“Doc Adams is the true father of baseball,” John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, told Fox News Digital.
Thorn first made that claim in a 1992 article for Elysian Fields Quarterly, a journal of baseball scholarship. He has repeated the statement many times since.
Daniel “Doc” Adams, a native of New Hampshire and a Harvard-trained physician, played a critical role in the development of baseball in the 1840s and 1850s. His incredible contributions were either lost to history or credited to others. Baseball historians and enthusiasts are working to recognize Adams and get him enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (Public Domain)
Adams was dubbed the “father of baseball” in the press as early as 1895. Yet when he died in 1899, his legacy as the essential figure in the foundation of the National Pastime died with him.
The vacuum in public perception of baseball lore was filled by other figures — less consequential figures, according to the experts today.
“Doc Adams is the true father of baseball.” — John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball
The popular origin story of baseball is that it was invented by Abner Doubleday, later a Civil War hero, in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839; and that Alexander Cartwright, Adams’ teammate with the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club of Manhattan, codified the game while playing baseball at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.
But a roar of protest has risen from the grandstand of Baseball America in recent years.
Historians and enthusiasts hope to set the record straight in a sport that cherishes tradition more than any other but has had its own origin story wrong for many years.
The New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, an important pioneer in the early days of baseball. Doc Adams, the “true father of baseball,” is in the front row, second from left. (Public Domain)
They want Doc Adams given his due by baseball officials and the American public as the most formative figure in the early days of baseball.
And they want him given a long overdue place of honor in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“Abner Doubleday, Santa Claus and Dracula are equally mythic figures,” Thorn has said in the past, confirming his faith in the clever barb for Fox News Digital.
Doubleday Field at Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, is dubbed “The Home of Baseball.”
Cartwright, meanwhile, is called “The Father of Modern Base Ball” on his Hall of Fame plaque. It credits Cartwright with the standards of the game we know today: bases 90 feet apart, nine innings per game and nine men per team.
Major General Abner Doubleday poses for a portrait in the Brady Photo Studios in Washington, D.C., in 1862. For years Doubleday has been given credit as the inventor of baseball. John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, calls Doubleday’s role in baseball a myth. (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
“Everything credited to Cartwright on his Hall of Fame plaque should instead by credited to Doc Adams,” baseball historian Roger Ratzenberger, publisher of DocAdamsBaseball.org, told Fox News Digital.
‘Exercise and good fellowship’
Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams was born on Nov. 1, 1814 in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, to Daniel and Nancy (Mulliken) Adams.
The elder Adams was a renowned physician, first in Massachusetts, then New Hampshire. He was a local politician, author and textbook writer whose works were used in classrooms for decades.
Doc Adams was born in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, on Nov. 1, 1814. The town only in recent years erected a sign acknowledging that its hometown son played a crucial role in the creation of baseball. (Roger Ratzenberger/DocAdamsBaseball.org)
Doc Adams attended college at Amherst and Yale, then medical school at Harvard. He looked to make his name in Gotham, arriving in New York City in 1839 or 1840.
Baseball clubs by the early 1840s had played various forms of the game informally among themselves for several years.
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“Its primary objectives were exercise and good fellowship,” baseball authority Eric Miklich writes on 19Cbaseball.com, his detailed compendium of the early days of the game.
Different clubs might play by different rules, while different cities had various versions of the game. “Town ball” in Philadelphia differed from “base ball” in New York, for example.
Doc Adams joined the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club.
Marjorie Adams is the great-granddaughter of Daniel “Doc” Adams, dubbed by some “true father of baseball.” She was critical in raising awareness of his role in shaping American sports history after his influence was lost over time. (Roger Ratzenberger/DocAdamsBaseball.org)
“The players included merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks, insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon,” Adams told The Sporting News in an 1896 interview at age 81.
“They went into it just for exercise and enjoyment, and I think they used to get a good deal more solid fun out of it than the players in the big games do nowadays.”
“Players included merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks, insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” — Doc Adams
He soon became one of its leading figures on the field and in the office.
He created a new position called shortstop in 1849 or 1850 — the position first devised to aid relay throws from the outfield; and soon became president of the Knickerbockers.
“The early Knickerbocker ball was so light that it could not be thrown even 200 feet,” Thorn wrote for the Society of American Baseball Research, “thus the need for a short fielder to send the ball in to the pitcher’s point.”
The Red Stocking Baseball Club of Cincinnati Ohio poses for a team photo in a studio in 1869, which was issued as a trade card. The Red Stocking, the first professional baseball team, and the first college football game, both emerged in 1869. They were part of a post-Civil war obsession in America with sports as entertainment. (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
Adams took it upon himself to make better baseballs by hand. And he oversaw the birth of the baseball bat industry.
“We had a great deal of trouble in getting balls made, and for six or seven years I made all the balls myself, not only for our club but also for other clubs when they were organized,” Adams told The Sporting News.
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“Finally I found a Scotch saddler who was able to show me a good way to cover the balls with horsehide, such as was used for whip lashes. I used to make the stuffing out of three or four ounces of rubber cuttings, wound with yarn and then covered with the leather. It was not until some time after 1858 that a shoemaker was found who was willing to make them for us. This was the beginning of base ball manufacturing.”
He added, “It was equally difficult to get good bats made, for no one knew any more about making bats than balls. The bats had to be turned under my personal supervision.”
The $3.26 million ‘Magna Carta of Baseball’
The foundation of modern baseball was laid in January and February 1857, in a national convention of baseball players at Smith’s Hotel, 462 Broome Street, in what’s now the SoHo section of Manhattan.
Doc Adams presided over the convention.
Under his leadership, the conference emerged with uniform new rules as the recreational game grew into a larger and increasingly competitive sport.
“The Magna Carta of Baseball” is shown here. The modern rules of baseball were set down at a convention in New York City in 1857, presided over by Daniel “Doc” Adams. His handwritten copy of the “Laws of Base Ball” netted $3.26 million at auction in 2016. (Hayden J. Trubitt)
The 1857 convention gave us the major framework we recognize as baseball today: These include nine innings per game, nine players per side and 90 feet between base paths.
These “Laws of Base Ball,” handwritten by Doc Adams, emerged in recent years and hit the auction block in 2016.
They were purchased by Hayden Trubitt, an attorney with Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth in Newport Beach, California, for a cool $3.26 million.
He mortgaged his house to help fund the purchase of what Thorn called the “Magna Carta of Baseball.”
Adams holds a special place in the American sports pantheon.
Trubitt knew little about Doc Adams at the time. He knew only that the documents were important, and that they fulfilled his passions for baseball, law and history.
He’s since come to realize that Adams holds a special place in the American sports pantheon — by following the arc of the rules conventions through the handwriting of its president.
The meeting “was like the U.S. Constitutional Convention,” Trubitt told Fox News Digital.
“It was a beautiful expression of American government sensibilities.”
Hayden J. Trubitt, an attorney with Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth in Newport Beach, California, purchased Doc Adams’ handwritten 1857 “Laws of Base Ball” for $3.26 million in 2016. The documents were dubbed “The Magna Carta of Baseball” by Major League Baseball historian John Thorn. (Steven Trubitt)
“The ‘Laws of Base Ball’ is a document of unparalleled importance in the history of America’s National Pastime,” SCP Auctions’ Vice President Dan Imler said in a statement after its sale.
“This [$3.26 million] figure represents not only the highest price ever paid for a baseball document, but the third-highest price ever for any piece of sports memorabilia.”
“This [$3.26 million] figure represents the highest price ever paid for a baseball document.” — SCP Auctions
“With the rules better defined and with the success of the 1857 convention, the game became increasingly popular. Subsequent conventions attracted more teams,” writes Miklich.
“The Civil War caused membership to decrease but helped introduce the game to southern parts of the United States. The membership of the National Association of Base Ball Players increased to more than 300 members in 1867.”
The Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team, formed in 1869.
The National Convention of Base Ball Clubs was held at Smith’s Hotel, 462 Broome Street, in what’s now the SoHo section of Manhattan in the early weeks of 1857. The convention, presided over by Daniel “Doc” Adams, set down the “Laws of Base Ball” still known today, including nine innings per game, nine men per side and 90 feet between bases. The current building on the site was built in 1900. There is nothing to mark the address as the location of a momentous event in American sports history. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
The National League — the same “senior circuit” that still competes today — was founded in 1876. The American League was formed in 1901.
The first World Series between the competing leagues ensued in 1903. Baseball was off and running, played by the rules Adams set down, played with equipment he pioneered, with his hands touching every aspect of the sport.
He was the first umpire to call balls and strikes in competitive baseball.
Adams authored another baseball first in 1858, the year after the rules convention. Now well into his 40s, he officiated the first all-star game series in Queens, New York, where he was the first umpire to call balls and strikes in competitive baseball.
‘We played until it was too dark to see’
Dr. Daniel Lucius Adams died on January 3, 1899, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 84 years old.
He’s buried today in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, beneath a stone in which the letters have grown worn and muddled, as if his name is being lost to history.
The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club was formed in 1842 by members of the earlier (founded 1837) Gotham Club and wrote down the first rules of the game in 1845. Front row, from left, Duncan Curry, Daniel “Doc” Adams — considered by many the true “father of baseball” — and Henry Tiebout. Back row, from left, Alfred Cartwright, Alexander Cartwright, remembered in baseball lore for recording baseball’s first rules, and William Wheaton. (Public Domain, courtesy Eric Miklich)
Perhaps the neglected memorial soon will get the same renewed attention as the man himself.
His star began to shine again through the research uncovered by Thorn, and by the dogged work by Doc Adams’ great-granddaughter, Marjorie Adams, now deceased, to revive his contribution to the game.
“Free from all restraint, and throwing off our coats we played until it was too dark to see any longer.” — Doc Adams
The nation’s longest-running vintage baseball tournament was renamed the Doc Adams Old Time Baseball Tournament in 2015. It’s held each summer in Bethpage, New York.
Adams enthusiasts now hope he’ll get his long-overdue plaque at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
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The Early Baseball Era Committee of the Hall of Fame meets every three years.
Adams was on their 2016 ballot right before his Laws of Base Ball were discovered early that year. He missed induction by two votes.
His next opportunity to be inducted into the Hall of Fame comes in December 2024, when the committee votes on its 2025 inductees.
The Canton Cornshuckers pose for a photo during the 25th Annual Doc Adams Old Time Base Ball Festival at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on August 7, 2022, in Old Bethpage, New York. The event is named for important but largely forgotten baseball pioneer Daniel “Doc” Adams. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Hall of Fame or not, Adam’s greatest contribution may be instilling a nation with a love for the sport he fathered and is now cherished as the National Pastime.
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“Our playground was the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, a beautiful spot at that time, overlooking the Hudson, and reached by a pleasant path along the cliff,” Adams told The Sporting News in 1896.
“Once there we were free from all restraint, and throwing off our coats we played until it was too dark to see any longer.”
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On this day in history, March 30, 1858, American visionary Hymen Lipman patents pencil with eraser
Philadelphia inventor Hymen L. Lipman rushed heroically to the aid of mistake-prone schoolchildren, draftsmen and artists everywhere when he secured the patent for the pencil with eraser on this day in history, March 30, 1858.
“Be it known that I, Hymen L. Lipman, of Philadelphia, in the county of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Lead-Pencil and Eraser;” the visionary wrote in his patent application.
“I make a lead-pencil in the usual manner, reserving about one-fourth of the length, in which I make a groove of suitable size … and insert in this groove a piece of prepared India rubber (or other erasive substance) secured to said pencil by being glued at one edge.”
The eraser, he noted in his application, “is particularly valuable for removing or erasing lines, figures, etc., and not subject to be soiled or mislaid on the table or desk” — as if the purpose of an eraser was unknown to mid-19th century consumers.
Lipman was born to a Sephardic Jewish family in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1817.
Hymen L. Lipman (1817-1893) is credited with registering the first patent for a pencil with an attached eraser on March 30, 1858. (Alamy)
He immigrated to the United States at age 21 and — like sliced-bread inventor Otto Rohwedder — set about reimagining everyday objects for the better.
“Lipman was also America’s first envelope manufacturer, and it was he who had the idea of adding adhesive to the back flap, so as to make sealing easier,” reports Haaretz.com of Israel.
A pencil with an eraser is “particularly valuable for removing or erasing lines, figures, etc., and not subject to be soiled or rnislaid on the table or desk.” — Hyman Lipman
“He devised a method for binding papers with an eyelet that preceded the stapler by two decades. And Lipman was the first to produce and sell blank postcards in the United States, in 1873.”
His pencil with eraser marked perhaps America’s greatest contribution to pencilcraft.
Sheep walking along the Honester Pass of Borrowdale Valley in the Lake District, Cumbriam England, circa 1925. Graphite discovered in Borrowdale in the 1500s proved useful for marking sheepskins — and fueled the rise of the pencil industry. (Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
The earliest writing tool, a stylus made with lead, dates back to antiquity, including the Egyptian and Roman Empires.
Pencils gained widespread popularity with the discovery of graphite deposits in the Borrowdale Valley in northern England in the 16th century.
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“Although (graphite) resembled coal, it would not burn,” reports the University of Waterloo (Canada) Earth Sciences Museum. “It did, however, prove to be an excellent marker of sheepskins.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). The American author wrote his most famous and enduring work, “Walden, or a Life in the Woods,” in 1854, in Concord, Massachusetts. He “was also renowned for his pencil-making prowess,” according to Pencil.com. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Graphite also boasted one major advantage over the lead used in earlier pencils: graphite is not no poisonous.
“A market for it opened up around the end of the sixteenth century. German miners from Keswick in the early sixteenth century had made more progress mining the graphite from this site,” the university notes.
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO INVENTED THE ZIPPER, ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST USEFUL DEVICES: WHITCOMB JUDSON
Although commonly referred to as the lead pencil, even in Lipman’s patent application, they are actually made of non-toxic graphite.
“Nuremberg, Germany, was the birthplace of the first mass-produced pencils in 1662. Spurred by Faber-Castell (established in 1761), Lyra, Steadtler and other companies, an active pencil industry developed throughout the 19th century industrial revolution,” reports Pencil.com, published by pencil-wood supplier California Cedar Products Co.
The pencil with eraser was patented in the United States by Hymen Lipman, an immigrant from Jamaica, on March 30, 1858. (Alamy/Getty Images)
“Early settlers depended on pencils from overseas until the war with England cut off imports. William Monroe, a Concord, Massachusetts cabinet-maker, is credited with making America’s first wood pencils in 1812.”
Famous Concord resident Henry David Thoreau, whose transcendentalist tome “Walden” remains essential to American letters more than 150 years after it was published, “was also renowned for his pencil-making prowess,” states Pencil.com.
“Henry David Thoreau was also renowned for his pencil-making prowess.” — Pencil.com.
The site highlights several other prominent figures in the history of pencildom.
Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin and American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were all well-documented pencil aficionados.
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Yet before Lipman of Philadelpha, none apparently had the foresight to attach an eraser.
“Despite the usefulness of the innovation Lipman’s new product did not fly off the shelves at first,” pencil enthusiast and blogger Patrick Murfin wrote in 2018.
Pencil with eraser, attached by metal grommet. Hymen Lipman’s original U.S. patent for the pencil and eraser called for it to be attached with glue. (Wodicka/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
The start of the Civil War in 1861 reportedly changed the fortunes of the pencil with eraser — and the fortunes of Mr. Lipman, too.
“War, as it often does, offered an exploding market for pencil manufacturers,” added Murfin.
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“Millions would be needed by the military, industry, and government bureaucracy. Entrepreneur Joseph Reckendorfer recognized the potential and in 1862 bought the patent rights from Lipman for a then astonishing $100,000, more than $2 million in current dollars.”
He went on, “Lipman walked away a very wealthy man.”
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