2018 Black History Month

Marie Van Brittan Brown. (1922-1999)

The first security system was invented by an African American nurse, Marie Van Brittan Brown. She was a full-time nurse, and she wanted to secure her home so she invented a system that would alert her if strangers were at her door.

Her invention consisted of peepholes, a camera, monitors, and a two-way microphone and then an alarm button that, when pressed, would immediately contact the police. Her patent laid the groundwork for the modern closed-circuit television system that is widely used for surveillance, home security systems, push-button alarm triggers, crime prevention, and traffic monitoring.