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Sarah Boone was an African American dressmaker who made her name by inventing the modern-day ironing board.

According to Biography, Boone was born Sarah Marshall near the town of New Bern in Craven County, North Carolina, in 1832. The daughter of enslaved parents, she earned her freedom at one point; some sources say it came with her 1847 marriage to James Boone, a free Black man. The couple went on to have eight children.

Utilizing a network tied to the Underground Railroad, Boone migrated with her husband, children and widowed mother to New Haven, Connecticut, prior to the Civil War.

Hailing from Charlotte North Carolina, born litterateur Ezekiel J. Walker earned a B.A. in Psychology at Winston Salem State University. Walker later published his first creative nonfiction book and has...

3 replies on “Sarah Boone is the reason we’re not all walking around in wrinkles”

  1. As a hobby sewist and someone who regularly wore woven cotton dresses and blouses for years, thank you for this great article. I’m sharing it.
    One small edit. In this phrase, you want “40s,” not “1940s.” “Boone took steps to overcome that systemic racism in her late 1940s….”

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