Louis Latimer received a patent for an improved process for manufacturing the carbon filaments in light bulbs. These improvements allowed for a reduction in time to produce and an increase in quality.

During his life time he had worked with and for Alexander Bell, Hiram Maxim and Thomas Edison. Latimer was the only black member of an exclusive social group, the Edison Pioneers.

Lewis Howard Latimer, a pioneer in the development of the electric light bulb, was the only Black member of Thomas A. Edison's research team of noted scientists. While Edison invented the incandescent bulb, it was Latimer, a member of the Edison Pioneers, who developed and patented the process for manufacturing the carbon filaments.

Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, and reared in Boston. Latimer's parents, as runaway slaves in the 1830s, had been assisted by whites as well as blacks. Their case had galvanized the Boston abolitionist community to its first major political activity.

Latimer and his brothers had enlisted in the military and served in the Civil War. At sixteen Latimer joined the Union navy as a cabin boy on the USS Massasoit.

After an honorable discharge in 1865 Latimer returned to Boston.