George Franklin Grant

Infobox Person
name = George Franklin Grant


image_size = 200px
caption = Grant in 1870
birth_date = September 15, 1846
birth_place = Oswego, New York
death_date = 1910
death_place = New Hampshire
occupation = Dentist
education=
parents = Phillis Pitt
Tudor Elandor Grant
children =

George Franklin Grant (September 16, 1846 – 1910) was the first African American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and an inventor of a wooden golf tee. cite web |url=https://www.countway.harvard.edu/chm/rarebooks/exhibits/gilt/gilt4.html |title=George Franklin Grant, 1847-1910 |accessdate=2007-05-24 |publisher=Harvard |quote= Dr. George Franklin Grant (1847-1910) of Oswego, New York, received a degree from the Harvard Dental School in 1870 and then joined the faculty as an authority on mechanical dentistry. He was the first African-American faculty member at the university and remembered today for his invention and patenting of the golf tee. ]

Biography

He was born in September 15, 1846 in Oswego, New York to Phillis Pitt and Tudor Elandor Grant. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=African Americans and the Game of Golf |url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sinnette-fairways.html |quote=He was born on September 15, 1846 in the small town of Oswego, New York, and he was one of seven children born to Phillis Pitt and Tudor Elandor Grant. |publisher=New York Times |date= |accessdate=2007-06-21 ] [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Son Invented Wooden Tee for Golfing |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-97746691.html|quote= George Franklin Grant is the only one of Tudor E. Grant's four children who left much of a historical trail, but it's an intriguing one, notably for an invention used by millions of golfers. Born in 1847 in Oswego to Tudor and Phillis Pitt Grant, he was educated in Oswego but apparently left home at age 15 after an argument with his father over his taste in clothes. He went to work for an Oswego dentist named S.A. Smith, toiling in a laboratory for five years, according to a Boston Public Library document. |publisher=The Post-Standard |date= |accessdate=2007-06-21 ]

He entered the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1868, and graduated in 1870. He then took a position in the department of Mechanical Dentistry in 1871, making him the Harvard University's first African-American faculty member, where he served for 19 years. He was a founding member and later the president of the Harvard Odontological Society and was a member of the Harvard Dental Alumni Association. Grant was elected president of the Alumni Association in 1881. cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_10_51/ai_65486576 |title=Birth of the tee: The story behind the man who gave the ball the perfect setup - George Franklin Grant, inventor |accessdate=2007-05-24 |format= |quote=Grant was born in 1846 in Oswego, N.Y. Unlike many modern-day heroes, his contribution to the game was through ingenuity and resourcefulness rather than playing ability. Grant received a patent for the golf tee in 1899. His was the blueprint for today's wooden and plastic tees. He owned the first patent, but it took almost a century to receive recognition for his invention.|publisher=Bnet ] He died in 1910 at his vacation home in New Hampshire of liver disease.

Legacy

In 1991 the USGA recognized him as the original inventor of the wooden tee.

Patent

*US patent|638920

References