Page 16 - Desert Oracle Nov 2018

Her creation would shut off automatically after each bite, so that the
individual could control their own feeding. She also designed and build

a non- automatic food receptacle support, for which she received a

U.S. patent, that affixed to an individualʼs neck and could hold a dish or

cup. “I usually worked from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.,” she told the Afro-
American.

By 1948, her device was ready for use. Yet when she presented her

completed prototype to the VA, she was stunned by a rejection. For

three years, Blount tried to make inroads with the VA, but finally after

being permitted a meeting with VA authorities, she was told in a letter
from chief director Paul B. Magnuson that the device was not needed

and that it was “impractical.”

“It was not surprising to me that the VA did not adopt this new

technology,” says Jennings; the VA was largely underprepared to

support the number of injured and disabled veterans, and assistive
technology just wasnʼt there yet. Throughout the war and after, lack

of preparation, resource shortages, and lack of action on the federal

level to improve conditions for disabled people left veterans and the

public with a sense that the VA was not providing veterans with
sufficient medical care and rehabilitation.

Even the prostheses that the VA provided for amputees were poorly

made, often produced for “quantity, not quality,” says Jennings.

Despite the U.S. Armyʼs disinterest in the device, Blount was

successful in finding a Canadian company to manufacture it.

Eventually, she found a home for it with the French military. “A
colored woman is capable of inventing something for the benefit of

mankind,” she said in another interview with the Afro-American after

the 1952 signing ceremony in France.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/woman-who-made…edium=email&utm_term=0_f5693aed98-a1a5a8d517-114324049