Welcome to the 4th Annual Mixed Experience History Month. Every May I profile notable historical figures who are part of the mixed experience.
Each weekday for the month of May you'll learn about important community leaders, artists, scientists, politicians, explorers and inventors. (If you have someone you want to see profiled, please let me know.)
In the past three years I have profiled folks like artist Isamu Noguchi, writer August Wilson, and abolitionist Ellen Craft and scholar Gloria Anzaldua.
This year's Mixed Experience History Month begins with a profile of inventor Norbert Rillieux.
Rillieux (1806-1894) was the son of an African-American enslaved woman and a wealthy white engineer. A native of New Orleans, Rillieux was sent to France for his education. At age 24, he became a professor at the L'Ecole Centrale, France's top engineering school.
Rillieux returned to the United States and soon invented the triple evaporation pan for sugar processing. His revolutionary invention--patented in 1834--greatly improved the quality, efficiency and safety of sugar refining.
In the 1850s, Rillieux returned to France to escape America's racism. He died in 1894. (Note: Rillieux is noted here to be a cousin of artist Edgar Degas.)
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