Henry Edwin Baker (1859-1928) was an African American author. He was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When he was 16 he was one of only three black men selected as cadet midshipmen to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis where he studied between 1874-1875. In 1879 he entered Howard University's law school, graduating in 1881 and later continuing his postgraduate studies in the law program in 1893. He became Assistant Examiner to the United States Patent Office. His article The Negro as an Inventor (1902), which appeared in Twentieth Century Negro Literature (1902), details some of the inventions by African Americans. His other works include: The Colored Inventor: A Record of Fifty Years (1913) and Benjamin Banneker: The Negro Mathematician and Astronomer (1918).