Historical Marker
Bates: The Community Commitment
Historical marker location:
1101 Smithville St, Annapolis, Maryland
( Marker is on Smithville Street, 0.1 miles east of South Villa Avenue, on the left when traveling west.)
1966 - 2006.
Maryland was home to the first African American woman to hold a patent: In 1885, Sarah E. Goode, an African American woman from Baltimore, became the first African American woman to hold a U.S. patent. Her invention was a folding cabinet bed, which was designed to save space in small apartments.