INVENTOR of the MONTH

W. Lincoln Hawkins: Bell Labs Pioneer

W. Lincoln Hawkins is regarded as a giant in the telecommunications industry. He received 145 U.S. and foreign patents, published more than 50 scientific papers, and authored three books. He was the first African American scientist employed at Bell Labs, where he worked from 1942 through 1976. Two months before his death in 1992, President George H. W. Bush awarded Hawkins the National Medal of Technology.

Hawkins’s name is not widely known; however, nearly everyone in America and other countries has benefited from his work. He is the inventor of the plastics formula that is used to insulate telephone lines. Today that material, known as plastic cable sheath, and is used to protect fiber-optic cable.

Prior to World War II, telephone cables were insulated with lead. British scientists developed a plastic insulation material that seemed practical because it could be made cheaply. It was a poor insulator, however, because it would break down quickly in severe hot or cold weather. Hawkins’s formula included an antioxidant additive that greatly extended the life of plastics to 50 years and longer. His invention saved telephone and power companies billions of dollars and revolutionized the communications industry.

Hawkins was born on March 21, 1911, in Washington, D.C., and attended the all-Black, academically acclaimed Dunbar High School.
He received a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1932. He later completed a master’s degree at Howard University and earned a doctorate from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

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