Ceramic Mug, (11oz, 15oz) C.R. Patterson and Sons.

C.R. Patterson and Sons was a trailblazing Black-owned company that made history as the first and only African American-owned automobile manufacturer in the United States.

🧑🏿‍🏭 Origins: From Slavery to Industry

• Charles Richard Patterson, born enslaved in Virginia in 1833, escaped to Ohio in the 1840s.
• He became a skilled blacksmith and partnered with a white carriage maker, forming J.P. Lowe & Company in 1873.
• In 1893, Patterson bought out Lowe’s share and renamed the business C.R. Patterson & Sons, intending to pass it to his sons Samuel and Frederick.

🚗 The Patterson-Greenfield Automobile

• After Charles’s death in 1910, Frederick Douglass Patterson took over and pivoted from carriages to automobiles.
• In 1915, the company released its first car: the Patterson-Greenfield, a luxury vehicle with:
  • A four-cylinder engine
  • Electric ignition and lighting
  • Cantilever suspension
  • Split windshield
• Only about 150 cars were produced between 1915–1918 due to rising competition and limited capital2.

🚌 Reinvention & Decline

• In the 1920s, Frederick shifted to bus and truck body manufacturing, serving school districts and commercial fleets.
• The company was renamed the Greenfield Bus Body Company.
• Despite innovation, the business closed in 1939, unable to compete with larger, automated manufacturers.

🏆 Legacy

• C.R. Patterson and Frederick Patterson were inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2021.
• Frederick was also the first Black football player at Ohio State University and a leader in Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Business League.

This story is a powerful blend of resilience, innovation, and Black excellence