Winters, Joseph Richard (1825?-1916), an African American mechanic, invented a ladder that firefighters could mount to a wagon or truck. The United States Patent Office approved his patent on the invention in 1878.
Winters was born around the year 1825 in Leesburg, Virginia. He moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, with his family around 1840.
In the 1800’s, fire was a constant threat to towns. Fires could easily rage out of control and destroy entire blocks. Fighting fires was dangerous and difficult, especially as buildings grew taller. Firefighters could use ladders to reach the upper stories. But unloading heavy ladders from horse-drawn firefighting wagons was slow, and the ladders were awkward to set up.
In 1849, the Philadelphia inventors George Huttman and George Kornelio patented a design for a folding fire-escape ladder. Winters developed a folding ladder that could be permanently mounted on a wagon. After firefighters drove to a disaster scene, they could quickly extend Winters’s ladder without having to unload it. Winters’s ladder also had hooks attached. Firefighters could use the hooks to carry up buckets of water or to pull up hoses. In 1879, Winters earned a patent for an improved version of the ladder that was easier to handle.
Winters continued his efforts to help people survive fires. In 1882, he won a patent for a new type of fire-escape ladder that could be permanently fastened to the side of a building. Reportedly, firefighters used Winters’s wagon-mounted ladder to fight the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. Winters died on Dec. 13, 1916.
