Jan Ernst Matzeliger was an African-American inventor in the shoe industry. Matzeliger was born September 15, 1852, in Paramaribo, Suriname, to a father who was a Dutch engineer and a mother who was a black Surinamese slave. At the age of 10, Matzeliger began working in machine shops under his father's guidance, until leaving his hometown of Suriname to be a sailor on an East Indian merchant ship, where he later settled in Philadelphia. As a dark-skinned man, his options were limited, and[...]