Date: June 11, 2025

Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons

Title and Show Info

Episode #29. Beyond the Peephole: Albert and Marie Van Brittan Brown and the Birth of Modern Home Security.

Featuring: Toni Davis (Host & Storyteller).

Summary

🎙️ In a city pulsing with tension and rising crime, one woman peers through the peephole and dares to imagine more. Beyond the Peephole dives into the rain-slicked streets of 1960s Queens, where Marie Van Brittan Brown—a nurse with a mind for invention—and her husband Albert, an electronics wiz, quietly sparked a revolution in home security.

What began as restless sketches and late-night coffee-fueled tinkering turned into something remarkable: the very first home security system utilizing television surveillance. Motorized cameras. Two-way microphones. Panic buttons. All dreamed up not in a corporate lab, but around a modest kitchen table in Jamaica, Queens.

This episode uncovers the untold story of how necessity, brilliance, and partnership converged to create a device that would change the world—long before “smart homes” and video doorbells were buzzwords.

Through suspenseful storytelling and reverent curiosity, we revisit the Browns’ journey from anxious nights to patent triumphs, exploring how a nurse and a technician’s quest for safety laid the foundation for a multibillion-dollar industry—and left an indelible mark on the modern world.

So lock your doors, turn up the volume, and peer beyond the peephole. What you find might just surprise you.

🎙️ Listen now to uncover the story behind the system that watches out for you—even when no one’s home.

Highlights:

00:56- INTRO.

01:05- MARIE VAN BRITTAN BROWN.

01:51- ALBERT BROWN.

02:03- NORMA & ALBERT JR.

04:11- THE IDEA.

04:83- THE SKETCHES.

06:13- THE MAKESHIFT LAB.

07:22- THE INVENTION OF THE HOME SECURITY SYSTEM UTILIZING TELEVISION SURVEILLANCE.

09:50- THE PATENT APPLICATION FILED.

10:30- THE DESCRIPTION.

10:27- GRANTED PATENT US#3,482,037.

13:36- NY TIMES ARTICLE.

16:02- MARKETING THEIR INVENTION.

17:19- TECHNOLOGY BEGINS TO ADVANCE.

18:38- MARIE PASSES AWAY.

19:15- CONCLUSION.

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Links to additional resources:

Marie Van Brittan Brown and Albert L. Brown - Wikipedia

Marie Van Brittan Brown (1922-1999) | BlackPast.org

Marie van Brittan Brown | Lemelson

Marie van Brittan Brown | Council on Science and Technology

Marie Van Brittan Brown | Wireless Infrastructure Association

Marie Van Brittan was an African American woman who contributed her livelihood to the invention of the first home security system.

Marie Van Brittan Brown | EBSCO Research Starters

US3482037A - Home security system utilizing television surveillance - Google Patents

Marie Van Brittan Brown: Inventor of the Home Security System | CoveSmart

Marie Van Brittan Brown: Home Security System Inventor - America Comes Alive

Marie Van Brittan Brown - The National Center of Women's Innovations

Rise in STEM

Marie Van Brittan Brown: Inventor of the First Home Security System - San Diego Squared

Marie Van Brittan Brown - Edheads

US-3482037-A - Home Security System Utilizing Television Surveillance | Unified Patents

This Day in Patent History - On December 2, 1969, a patent for home security system utilizing television surveillance was granted to Marie V.B. Brown - Patent Yogi

HOME SECURITY SYSTEM UTILIZING TELEVISION SURVEILLANCE - Marie, Van Brittan Brown

Marie Van Brittan Brown: Inventor of the First Home Security System – Pioneers in STEM: Ingenious Innovations by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color

Patent of the Day: Home Security System Utilizing Television | Suiter Swantz IP

Patent No - US 3,482,037 A Home security system utilizing television surveillance (Inventors - Brown Albert L, Brown Marie Van Brittan) - Patent Yogi

Marie Van Brittan Brown Biography for Kids

Marie Van Brittan Brown Facts for Kids

Marie Van Brittan Brown - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help

Kids - Marie Van Brittan Brown and Home Security - Pikes Peak Library District - OverDrive

Marie Van Brittan Brown, Inventor | Being Bold

How Marie Van Brittan Brown Pioneered The Home Security System