WOMEN AS INVENTORS
"There have been very learned women as there have been women warriors,
but there have never been women inventors."[227] Thus wrote Voltaire
with that flippancy and cocksureness which was so characteristic of the
author of the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_--a man who was ever ready to
give, offhand, a categorical answer to any question that came before him
for discussion. His countryman, Proudhon, expressed the same opinion in
other words when he wrote, _Les femmes n'ont rien invente, pas meme leur
quenouille_--women have invented nothing, not even their distaff.
Had these two writers thoroughly sifted the evidence available, even in
their day, for a proper consideration of this interesting subject, they
would, both of them, have reached a very different conclusion from that
which is expressed in the sentences just quoted. Had they consulted the
records of antiquity, they would have learned that most of the earliest
and most important inventions were attributed to women; and, had they
studied the reports of explorers among the savage tribes of the modern
world, they would have found that these early legends and traditions
regarding the inventions of women were fully confirmed by what was being
done in their own time. Man's first needs were food, shelter and
clothing; and tradition in all parts of the world is unanimous in
ascribing to woman the invention, in essentially their present forms, of
all the arts most conducive to the preservation and well-being of our
race.
In Egypt, as Diodorus Siculus informs us, the inventors of specially
useful things were, as a reward of their deserts, enrolled among the
gods, as were certain heroes among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Foremost among these was Isis, who laid the foundation of agriculture by
the introduction of the culture of wheat and other cereals. Before her
time the Egyptians lived on roots and herbs. In lieu of these crude
articles of food, Isis gave them bread and other more wholesome
aliments. She invented the process of making linen and was the first to
apply a sail to the propulsion of a boat. To her also was attributed the
art of embalming, the discovery of many medicines and the beginnings of
Egyptian literature.
Even more prominent was Pallas Athene, one of the greatest divinities of
the Greeks. Virgil, in his _Georgics_, invokes her as
"Inventor, Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil,
Thou founder of the plow and the plowman's toil."
But not only was she regarded as the _oleae inventrix_-inventress of the
olive--as Virgil phrases it, but also as the inventor of all
handicrafts, whether of women or men. Like Isis, she was deemed the
originator of agriculture and many of the mechanic arts. But, above all,
she was the inventor of musical instruments and those plastic and
graphic arts which have for ages placed Greece in the forefront of
civilization and culture.
From the beginning it was woman who first made use of wool and flax for
textile fabrics; and of this prehistoric woman one can affirm what
Solomon, in his _Book of Proverbs_, said of the virtuous woman of his
day:
"She seeketh wool and flax and worketh diligently with her hands;
She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff."
She was also the first one to weave cotton and silk. It was Mama Oclo,
the wife of Manco Capac, as the Inca historian, Garcilasso de la Vega,
tells us, who taught the women of ancient Peru "to sew and weave cotton
and wool and to make clothes for themselves, their husbands and
children."
And it was a woman, Se-ling-she, the wife of the emperor, Hwang-te, who
lived nearly three thousand years before Christ, to whom the most
ancient Chinese writers assign the discovery of silk. Her name is
perpetuated in the name China, the goddess of silkworms, and under this
appellation she still receives divine honors.
The preparation and weaving of silk were introduced into Japan by four
Chinese girls, and the new industry soon became there, as in China, one
of the chief sources, as it is to-day, of the country's wealth. To
perpetuate the memory of these four pioneer silk weavers the grateful
Japanese erected a temple in their honor in the province of Setsu.
According to tradition, the eggs of the silk moth and the seed of the
mulberry tree were conveyed to India, concealed in the lining of her
headdress, by a Chinese princess. She was thus instrumental in
establishing in the region watered by the Indus and the Ganges the same
industry which her countrywomen had introduced into the Land of the
Rising Sun.
Cashmere shawls and attar of roses, the costliest of perfumes, are
attributed to an Indian empress, Nur Mahal, whom her husband, in view of
her achievements, as well as on account of his passionate love for her,
called "The Light of the World."[228]
And what shall we say of those exquisite creations of woman's brain and
hand--needle-point and pillow lace? These two inventions, like the
manufacture of silk, have given employment to tens of thousands of women
throughout the world; and, in such countries as Italy, Belgium and
France, where lace-making has received special attention, they have for
centuries been most prolific sources of revenue. Silk fabrics in ancient
Rome were worth their weight in gold. The finest specimens of point lace
are, even to-day, as highly prized as precious stones, and, like the
great masterpieces of plastic art, are handed down as heirlooms from
generation to generation. In no other instance, except possibly in the
hairspring of a watch, is there such an extraordinary difference in
value between the raw material and the finished product as there is in
the case of the finest thread lace.
A great sensation was caused in Italy a few decades ago when a humble
workwoman, Signora Bassani, succeeded in rediscovering the peculiar
stitch of the celebrated Venetian point, which had been lost for
centuries. She was at once granted a patent for her invention, which was
by her countrymen regarded as an event of national importance.
After painting and sculpture, probably no art has contributed more to
the development of the esthetic sense among the nations of the world
than has the art whose chief tools are the needle and the bobbin in the
deft hands of a beauty-loving woman. If the name of the first lace-maker
had not been lost in the mists of antiquity, it is reasonable to suppose
that she, too, would long since have had a monument erected to her
memory, as well as the weavers of silk and makers of attar of roses and
cashmere shawls. She was surely as deserving of such an honor.
More conclusive information respecting woman as an inventor is, strange
as it may appear, afforded by a systematic study of the various races of
mankind which are still in a state of savagery. Such a study discloses
the interesting fact that woman, contrary to the declaration of
Proudhon, has not only been the inventor of the distaff, but that she
has furthermore--pace Voltaire--been the inventor of all the peaceful
arts of life, and the inventor, too, of the earliest forms of nearly all
the mechanical devices now in use in the world of industry.
Architecture, as well as many other things, was credited by the ancient
Greeks to Minerva. This was a poetical way of stating the fact--now
generally accepted by men of science--that women were the first
homemakers. But the first home was a very simple and a very humble
structure. When not a cave, it was a simple shelter made of bark or
skins, sufficient to afford protection to the mother and her child.
Subsequently it was a lodge made of earth, of stone or wattle work or
adobe.
Women were, in the light of anthropology, as well as in that of
mythology and tradition, the first to discover the nutritive and
medicinal values of fruits, seeds, nuts, roots and vegetables. They were
consequently the first gardeners and agriculturists and the first to
build up a materia medica. While men were engaged in the chase or in
warfare, women were gradually perfecting those divers domestic arts
which, in the course of time, became their recognized specialties. They
soon found that it was better to cultivate certain food plants and
trees than to depend on them for nourishment in the wild state. This was
particularly true in the case of such useful and widely distributed
species as wheat, rice, maize, the yam, potato, banana and cassava.
At first most of these food products were used in the raw state, but
woman's quick inventive genius was not long in making one of the most
important and far-reaching discoveries--a method for producing fire. In
a certain sense this was the greatest discovery ever made, and the
Greeks showed their appreciation of the value of it by asserting that
fire was stolen from heaven. Considering its multifarious uses in
heating and cooking, thereby immensely adding to the comfort and
well-being of primitive man, we are not surprised that in certain parts
of the world fire has always been considered something sacred, and that
the old Romans instituted Vestal Virgins, and the ancient Peruvians
Virgins of the Sun, to preserve this precious element and have it ever
ready when required for sacrifice or for any of their various liturgical
functions. If any one ever deserved a "monument more durable than
bronze," it was the woman who, "on the edge of time," first drew the
Promethean spark from a piece of pyrites by striking it with flint or
produced it by the friction of two pieces of wood.
After building a home and establishing in it a fireplace for the
preparation of food, woman's next concern was to secure more raiment
than was afforded by the traditional fig leaf. This she found in the
bark of certain trees, in the fiber of hemp and cotton and in the wool
of sheep and goats. With these and her distaff she spun thread, and from
the thread thus obtained she was by means of her primitive
loom--likewise her invention--able to provide all kinds of textile
fabrics for clothing for herself and family.
But there was much more to invent before the home of primitive man, or
rather primitive woman, could be considered as fairly equipped.
Furniture and culinary utensils were required, and these, too, were
provided by the deft and cunning fingers of woman. She was the first
potter and the first basketmaker; and anyone who has lived among the
savages of any land, especially among the aborigines in the interior of
South America, knows what an important part is played in domestic
economy by native basketry and ceramic ware. Both of these articles were
at first of the simplest character, but woman's innate esthetic sense
soon enabled her to produce those highly ornate specimens of pottery and
basketry that are so highly prized in the public and private collections
of this country and Europe.
The first device for converting grain into flour was, like the many
other articles already named, the invention of woman. Whether the simple
mortar and pestle of the North American Indian, or the Mexican metate
and muller, or the Irish quern, it was, in every case, the product of
woman's brain and handiwork, as it was also the basal prototype of our
most improved types of flouring mills. And so was the soapstone pot--the
predecessor of the iron or brass kettle--a woman's invention, as well as
many similar contrivances for preparing food.
But what is probably the most remarkable culinary invention of woman in
the state of savagery is her unique contrivance for converting the
poisonous root of the _manihot utilissima_--the staple food of tropical
America--into a wholesome and nutritious aliment. It is a bag, called
_matapi_, which serves both as a press and as a sieve. For the
inhabitants of the vast basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco, where the
chief articles of diet are derived from the manihot and the plantain,
this invention of woman is the most important ever made and ranks in
importance with the discovery by the same skilled food purveyor of the
dietetic value of manihot itself.
The first knife was a woman's invention, as the arrow-head and the spear
point were the inventions of her hunter husband. It was in the beginning
a most primitive implement; but, whether in the form of a simple flake
of flint of obsidian, or in that of an Eskimo ulu--the woman's knife--it
was the archetype of all the forms of cutlery now in use. With this rude
knife the primitive housewife skinned and carved the game brought to her
by her male companion. With it she scraped the interior of the hide and
cut it up into articles of clothing. She was thus the first furrier and
tailor. With it she made the first sandals and moccasins, and, in doing
so, became the first shoemaker and the original St. Crispin.
To woman, the originator of the first home, is due also the invention of
the oven and the chimney. She was also the first maker of salt--that
all-important condiment and sanitary agent--and the first to obtain
nitre from wood ashes. She was the first engineer, as is evinced in her
invention of the parbuckle and in the bamboo conduit, which was the
predecessor of the great canals of Babylonia[229] and the imposing
aqueducts of ancient Rome.
Important, however, as are all the foregoing inventions, we must not
forget what was an equally important contribution by woman to the
welfare and progress of our race--the domestication of animals. No
discovery after that of artificially producing fire has contributed more
toward the development of our race than the taming of milk- and
fleece-bearing animals, like the cow, the sheep, the goat and the llama,
or of burden-bearing animals, like the horse, the ass, the camel and the
reindeer, or of hunting and watching animals like the faithful,
ubiquitous dog. For, in the first place, the domestication of these
supremely useful animals diminished man's labor as burden bearers. It
likewise supplemented the fecundity of women and facilitated the
multiplication of the race, because it supplied to the child a
nourishment that previously could be obtained only from the mother, who
had been obliged to suckle her young several years longer than was
necessary after the friendly goat and cow came to her aid. Still another
consequence of the domestication of animals was that it immensely
diminished the amount of woman's care and labor, afforded her the
necessary leisure to develop the arts of refinement, and stimulated
intellectual growth in a way that otherwise would have been impossible.
It is often stated by certain writers who love to indulge in fanciful
speculations that women inventors got their ideas as home builders and
weavers and potters from nest-building birds, from web-weaving spiders,
and from clay workers like termites and mud wasps. Be this as it may,
the fact remains in all its inspiring truth that, in the matter of
industrialism, as opposed to the militancy of man, we can unhesitatingly
declare, with Virgil, _Dux femina facti_--woman was the leader in all
the arts of peace--arts which have been slowly perfected through the
ages until they present the extraordinary development which we now
witness.
When we contemplate the splendid porcelain wares of Meissen and Sevres,
or the countless varieties of cutlery produced in the factories of
Sheffield, or the beautiful textile fabrics from the looms of Lowell and
Manchester, or the delicate silks woven in the famous establishments of
Lombardy and Southern France, or the countless forms of footwear made in
Lynn and Chicago, or the exquisite furs brought from Siberia and the
Pribyloff Islands, and dyed in Leipsic and London, or the astonishing
output of food products from the factories of Pittsburgh and the immense
roller mills of Minneapolis, we little think that the colossal wheels
of these vast and varied industries were set in motion by the inventive
genius of woman in the dim and distant prehistoric past.
And yet such is the case. Her handiwork from the earliest pottery may be
traced through its manifold stages from its first rude beginnings to the
most gorgeous creations of ceramic art. The primeval knife of flint or
obsidian has become the keen tool of tempered steel; the simple distaff
has issued in the intricate Jacquard loom; the metate and pestle
actuated by a woman's arm have, by a long process of evolution,
developed into our mammoth roller mills impelled by water power, steam
or electricity.[230]
But these extraordinary changes from the rude implements of prehistoric
time to the complicated machinery of the present is but a change of
kind, not one of principle. It is a change due to specialization of work
which became possible only when men, liberated from the avocations of
hunting and warfare, were able to take up the occupations of women, and
develop them in the manner with which we are now familiar.
Why men, rather than women, should have achieved this work of
specialization; whether it was due to social causes or to woman's
physical and mental organization, or to these various factors combined,
we need not inquire; but such is the fact. Whereas in primitive times
every woman having a home was a cook, a butcher, a baker, a potter, a
weaver, a cutler, a miller, a tanner, a furrier, an engineer, man, in
assuming the work which was originally exclusively feminine and
performed by one and the same person, has subdivided and specialized by
improved forms of machinery and otherwise, so that what is now done is
accomplished more rapidly and to better purpose, and with
correspondingly greater results in the development of industry and in
the progress of civilization.
And the remarkable fact is that many of the most important of these
improvements due to specialization have been made within the memory of
those yet living, while still others have been originated in quite
recent years. Nevertheless, great as has been the work of specialization
and coordination in every department of human industry during the last
few decades, it is, to judge by the reports of the Patent Office, as yet
in little more than its initial stage.
We are now prepared for the consideration of the part woman has taken in
this specializing movement and for a discussion of her share in modern
inventions and in the improvements of those manifold inventions which
were due to her genius and industry untold ages ago. Considering the
short time during which her inventive mind has been specially active,
and the many handicaps which have been imposed on her, the wonder is not
that she has achieved so little in comparison with man, but rather that
she has accomplished so much.
The first woman to receive a patent in the United States was Mary Kies.
It was issued May 5, 1809, for a process of straw-weaving with silk or
thread. Six years later Mary Brush was granted a patent for a corset. It
seems to have been quite satisfactory, for no other patent for this
article of feminine attire was issued to a woman until 1841, when one
was granted to Elizabeth Adams. During the thirty-two years which
elapsed between the issuing of a patent to Mary Kies and Elizabeth
Adams, but twenty other patents were granted to women. The chief of
these were for weaving hats from grass, manufacturing moccasins,
whitening leghorn straw, for a sheet-iron shovel, a cook stove and a
machine for cutting straw and fodder.
During the decade following 1841, fourteen patents were issued to as
many different women. Among the articles patented by them were an
ice-cream freezer, a weighing scale and a fan attachment for a rocking
chair. It was not recorded, however, that this last invention, valuable
as it was apparently, ever became particularly popular. But by far the
most remarkable of woman's inventions during this period was a submarine
telescope and lamp, for which a patent was awarded in 1845 to Sarah
Mather.
From 1851 to 1861, twenty-eight patents were issued to women--just twice
the number awarded them during the preceding decade. Most of these
patents were for articles of domestic use or feminine apparel. Four of
them, however, comprised a scale for instrumental music, for mounting
fluid lenses, a fountain pen and an improvement in reaping and mowing
machines.
The following decade is remarkable for the wonderful increase in the
number of inventions due to women, for there was a sudden jump from
twenty-eight to four hundred and forty-one patents awarded them between
the years 1861 and 1871. Women now began to have confidence in their
inventive faculties, and, no longer content with exercising their genius
on articles of clothing and culinary utensils, sewing, washing and
churning machines, they began to devote their attention to objects that
were entirely foreign to their ordinary home activities. This is clearly
evinced by the patents they obtained for such inventions as improvements
in locomotive wheels, devices for reducing straw and other fibrous
substances for the manufacture of paper pulp, improvements in corn
huskers, low-water indicators, steam and other whistles, corn plows, a
method of constructing screw propellers, improvements in materials for
packing journals and bearings, in fire alarms, thermometers, railroad
car heaters, improvements in lubricating railway journals, in conveyors
of smoke and cinders for locomotives, in pyrotechnic night signals,
burglar alarms, railway car safety apparatus, in apparatus for punching
corrugated metals, desulphurizing ores and other similar inventions in
the domain of mechanical engineering, inventions that, at first blush,
would seem to be quite alien to the genius and capacity of woman.
From now on women's inventions in the United States increased at an
extraordinary rate, for from 1871 until July 1, 1888, when the first
government report was made on the patents issued to women inventors, she
had to her credit nearly two thousand inventions, many of which were of
prime importance.[231]
During the seven years following 1888 she was awarded twenty-five
hundred and twenty-six patents--more than the total number that had been
granted her during the preceding seventy-nine years. Between 1895 and
1910, three thousand six hundred and fifteen more patents were placed to
her credit, making a grand total for her first century of inventive
achievement of eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six patents. No
Patent Office reports are available since 1910, but the number of
inventions for which women have received patents since Mary Kies was
awarded hers on May 5, 1809, for "straw-weaving with silk or thread,"
cannot be far from ten thousand. This fact will, doubtless, be a
revelation to that large class of men who still seem to share the views
of Voltaire and Proudhon that women are incapable of inventing even the
simplest article of domestic use.
The following story well illustrates the prevailing ignorance regarding
the part women have taken in the invention of certain articles that are
so common that most people think they were never patented.
"I was out driving once with an old farmer in Vermont," writes Mrs. Ada
C. Bowles, "and he told me, 'You women may talk about your rights, but
why don't you invent something?' I answered, 'Your horse's feed bag and
the shade over his head were both of them invented by women.' The old
fellow was so taken aback that he was barely able to gasp, 'Do tell!'"
Had he investigated further he would have found that the flynet on his
horse's back, the tugs and other harness trimmings, the shoes on his
horse's feet[232] and the buggy seat he then occupied were all the
inventions of women. He would, doubtless, also have discovered that the
currycomb he had used before starting out on his drive, as well as the
snap hook of the halter and the checkrein and the stall unhitching
device were likewise the inventions of members of that sex whose
capacity he was so disposed to depreciate; for women have been awarded
patents--in some instances several of them--for all the articles that
have been mentioned. He might furthermore have learned that the fellies
in his buggy wheels and his daughter's side saddle had been made under
women's patents; and that, to complete his surprise and confusion, the
leather used in his harness had been sewn by a machine patented by a
woman who was not only an inventor but who was also for many years the
manager and proprietor of a large harness factory in New York City.
What particularly arrests one's attention in reading the Patent Office
reports is not only the large number of inventions by women, but also
the very wide range of the devices which they embrace. It is not
surprising to find them inventing and improving culinary utensils, house
furniture and furnishings, toilet articles, wearing apparel and
stationery, trunks and bags, toys and games, designs for printed and
textile fabrics, for boxes and baskets, screens, awnings, baby carriers,
musical instruments, appliances for washing and cleaning, attachments
for bicycles and type-writing machines, art, educational and medical
appliances; for these things are in keeping with their proper _metier_;
but it is surprising for those who are not familiar with the history of
modern inventions to learn of the share women have had in inventing and
improving agricultural implements, building appurtenances, motors of
various kinds, plumbing apparatus, theatrical stage mechanisms, and,
above all, countless railway appliances from a coupling or fender to an
apparatus for sanding railroad tracks, or a device for unloading
boxcars.
Those who are still of the opinion of Voltaire and Proudhon--and their
name is legion--respecting woman's inventive powers, might be willing to
accord to her the capacity to design a new form of clothes pin, or hair
crimper, or rouge pad, or complexion mask, or powder puff, or baby
jumper; but they would limit her ability to contrivances of this
character. But what would these same people say if they were told that
over and above the things just mentioned for which many women have
actually received patents, the much depreciated female sex had been
granted patents for locomotive wheels, stuffing boxes, railway car
safety apparatus, life rafts, cut-offs for hydraulic and other engines,
street cars, mining machines, furnaces for smelting ores,
sound-deadening attachments for railway cars, feed pumps and transfer
apparatus for traction cars, machines for driving hoops on to barrels,
apparatus for destroying vegetation on and removing snow from railroads,
coke crushers, artificial stone compositions, elevated railways, new
forms of cattle cars, dams and reservoirs, welding seams of pipes and
hardening iron, alloys for bell metal and alloys to resemble silver,
methods of refining and hardening copper, processes for concentrating
ores, improvement in elevators and designs for raising sunken vessels?
And yet, incredible as it may appear to these scoffers at woman's
genius, patents for all these inventions, methods and processes--many
of them of exceeding value--and for hundreds of others of a similar
nature, have been issued to women during recent years. And the activity
of the fair inventors, far from abating, is becoming daily more
pronounced, and promises to reward their efforts with far greater
triumphs. Indeed, women are becoming so active in the numerous fields of
invention--even in such unlikely ones as metallurgy and civil,
mechanical and electrical engineering--that they bid fair to rival men
in what they have long regarded as their peculiar specialty.
In 1892 a woman in New York was granted two patents, one for a process
of malting beer and the other for hooping malt liquors. These
inventions, however, are not so foreign to the avocation of woman as
they at first appear. For, if we may believe the teachings of ethnology
and prehistoric archaeology in this matter, women were the first brewers.
The one, therefore, who two decades ago secured the two patents just
mentioned was but taking up anew an occupation in which her sex
furnished the first invention many thousand years ago.
An instructive fact touching woman's inventive achievements is that her
fullest success is coincident with her enlarged opportunities for
education, and began with the breaking down of the prejudices which so
long existed against her having anything to do with the development of
the mechanical or industrial arts. When one recollects that the public
schools of Boston, established in 1642, were not open to girls until a
century and a half later, and then only for the most elementary branches
and for but one-half the year; and that girls did not have the benefit
of a high school education in the center of New England culture until
1852; and when one furthermore recalls the attitude of the general
public toward women and girls extending their activities beyond the
nursery and the kitchen, it is easy to understand that there was not
much encouragement for them to exercise their inventive talent, even if
they had felt an inclination to do so.
The experience of Miss Margaret Knight, of Boston, who in 1871 was
awarded a valuable patent for making a paper-bag machine is a case in
point and well illustrates some of the difficulties that women inventors
had to contend with only a few decades ago.
"As a child," she writes to a friend, "I never cared for the things that
girls usually do; dolls never had any charms for me. I couldn't see the
sense of coddling bits of porcelain with senseless faces; the only
things I wanted were a jackknife, a gimlet and pieces of wood. My
friends were horrified. I was called a tomboy, but that made very little
impression on me. I sighed sometimes because I was not like other girls,
but wisely concluded that I couldn't help it, and sought further
consolation from my tools. I was always making things for my brothers.
Did they want anything in the line of playthings, they always said,
'Mattie will make them for us.' I was famous for my kites, and my sleds
were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town. I'm not surprised
at what I've done; I'm only sorry I couldn't have had as good a chance
as a boy, and have been put to my trade regularly."
Even after she had demonstrated her skill as an inventor, Miss Knight
had to encounter the skepticism of the workmen to whom she entrusted the
manufacture of her machines. They questioned her ability to superintend
her own work, and it was only her persistency and remarkable competency
that ultimately converted their incredulity into respect and admiration.
Since women have come into the possession of greater freedom than they
formerly enjoyed, and have been afforded better opportunities of
developing their inventive faculties, many of them have taken to
invention as an occupation, and with marked success. They find it the
easiest and most congenial way of earning a livelihood, and not a few
of them have been able thereby to accumulate comfortable fortunes,
besides developing industries that have given employment to thousands of
both sexes.
Thus the straw industry in the United States is due to Miss Betsy
Metcalf, who, more than a century ago, produced the first straw bonnet
ever manufactured in this country. Since then the industry which this
woman originated has assumed immense proportions. The number of straw
hats now made in Massachusetts alone, not to speak of those annually
manufactured elsewhere, runs into the millions.
Scarcely less wonderful is the industry developed by Miss Knight,
already mentioned, through her marvelous invention for manufacturing
satchel-bottom paper bags. Many men had previously essayed to solve the
problem which she attacked with such signal success, but all to no
purpose. So valuable was her invention considered by experts that she
refused fifty thousand dollars for it shortly after taking out her
patent.
Often what are apparently the most trivial inventions prove the most
lucrative. Thus, a Chicago woman receives a handsome income for her
invention of a paper pail. A woman in San Francisco invented a baby
carriage, and received fourteen thousand dollars for her patent. The
gimlet-pointed screw, which was the idea of a little girl, has realized
to its patentee an independent fortune. Still more remarkable is the
Burden horseshoe machine, the invention of a woman, which turns out a
complete horseshoe every three seconds and which is said to have
effected a saving to the public of tens of millions of dollars.
The cotton gin, one of the most useful and important of American
inventions--a machine that effected a complete revolution in the cotton
industry throughout the world--is due to a woman, Catherine L. Greene,
the wife of General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary fame. After she
had fully developed in her own mind a method for separating the cotton
from its seed, which was after her husband's death, she intrusted the
making of the machine to Eli Whitney, who was then boarding with her,
and who had a Yankee's skill in the use of tools. Whitney was several
times on the point of abandoning as impossible the task which had been
assigned to him, but Mrs. Greene's faith in ultimate success never
wavered, and, thanks to her persistence in the work and the putting into
execution of her ideas, her great undertaking was finally crowned with
success. She did not apply for a patent for her invention in her own
name, because so opposed was public opinion to woman's having part in
mechanical occupation that she would have exposed herself to general
ridicule and to a loss of position in society. The consequence was that
Whitney--her employee--got credit for an invention which, in reality,
belonged to her. She was, however, subsequently able to retain a
subordinate interest in it through her second husband, Mr. Miller.
This is only one of many instances in which patents, taken out in the
name of some man, are really due to women. The earliest development of
the mower and reaper, as well as the clover cleaner, belongs to Mrs. A.
H. Manning, of Plainfield, New Jersey. The patent on the clover cleaner
was issued in the name of her husband; but, as he failed to apply for a
patent for the mower and reaper, his wife was, after his death, robbed
of the fruit of her brain by a neighbor, whose name appears on the list
of patentees of an invention which originated with Mrs. Manning.
A few years ago men of science awoke to the startling fact that the
earth's supply of nitrates was being rapidly exhausted. It was then
realized that, unless some new store of this essential fertilizer could
be found, it would soon be impossible to provide the food requisite for
the world's teeming millions. What was to be done? Never was a more
important problem presented to science for solution, and never did
science more quickly and efficaciously respond. It was soon recognized
that the earth's atmosphere was the only available storehouse for the
much-needed nitrogen. Forthwith scientists and inventors the world over
proceeded to tap this source of supply and to convert its vast stores of
nitrogen into the nitrates which are so indispensable to vegetable life.
To form some idea of the importance of the problem and the urgency of
its solution, it may be stated that the amount of fertilizer required
for the cotton crop alone in the Southern States in 1911 was no less
than three million tons. What, then, must have been the total amount
used through the world for cereals and other crops that need constant
fertilizing? The famous nitrate deposits of Chili could supply only a
small fraction of the stupendous amount required, and they, according to
recent calculations, cannot continue to meet the present demands on them
for more than a hundred years longer, at most.
The process involved, when once conceived, was simple enough, for it
merely required the conversion of the nitrogen of the air into nitric
acid, which in turn was employed in the production of nitrate of lime.
But, simple as it was, mankind had to wait a long time for its
origination, and action was taken only when necessity compelled. At
present there are numerous nitrate factories in France, Germany,
Austria, Sweden, Norway and the United States, and the output is already
enormous and constantly increasing. Electricity, that mysterious force
which has so frequently come to man's assistance during the last few
decades, is the agent employed.
But who was the originator of the idea of utilizing the atmosphere for
the production of nitrates? Who took out the first patent for a process
for making nitrates by using the nitrogen of the air? It was a
Frenchwoman--Mme. Lefebre, of Paris--long since forgotten. As early as
1859 she obtained a patent in England for her invention, but, as the
need of fertilizers was not so urgent then as it is now, it was allowed
to drop into oblivion, and the matter was not again taken up until a
half-century later, when others secured the credit for an idea which was
first conceived by a woman who happened to have the misfortune to live
fifty years in advance of her time.
It were easy to extend the list of important inventions due to women and
of patents which were issued in the name of their husbands or other men;
to tell of inventions, too, of whose fruits, because they happened to be
helpless or inexperienced women, the real patentees were often robbed;
but the foregoing instances are quite sufficient to show what woman's
keen inventive genius is capable of achieving in spite of all the
restrictions put on her sex, and in spite of her lack of training in the
mechanic arts.
Had women, since the organization of our Patent Office, enjoyed all the
educational opportunities possessed by men; had they received the same
encouragement as the lordly sex to develop their inventive faculties;
had the laws of the country accorded them the rewards to which their
labor and genius entitled them, they would now have far more inventions
to their credit than those indicated in our government reports; and they
would, furthermore, be able to point to far more brilliant achievements
than have heretofore, under the unfavorable conditions under which they
were obliged to work, been possible. But when we recall all the
obstacles they have had to overcome and remember also the fact that most
of the patents referred to in the preceding pages have been secured by
women living in the United States--little being said of the modern
inventions of women in foreign countries--we can see that their record
is indeed a splendid one, that their achievements are not only worthy of
all praise, but also a happy augury for the future. When they shall have
the same freedom of action as men in all departments of activity in
which they exhibit special aptitude, when they shall have the same
advantages of training and equipment and the prospect of the same
emoluments as the sterner sex for the products of their brainwork and
craftsmanship, then may we expect them to achieve the same distinction
in the mechanic arts as has rewarded their efforts in science and
literature; and then, too, may we hope to see them once more regain
something of that supremacy in invention which was theirs in the early
history of our race.
FOOTNOTES:
[227] "On a vu des femmes tres savantes, comme en fut des guerrieres,
mais il n'y en eut jamais d'inventrices." _Dictionnaire Philosophique,
sub voce Femmes._ Condorcet, in commenting on this statement, remarks
that "if men capable of invention were alone to have a place in the
world, there would be many a vacant one, even in the academies."
[228] That marvelous structure known as the Taj Mahal--India's noblest
tribute to the grace and goodness of Indian womanhood--is sometimes said
to be a monument to the memory of Nur Mahal. This is not the case. This
matchless gem of architecture--
" ... The proud passion of an emperor's love
Wrought into living stone, which gleams and soars
With body of beauty shrining soul and thought."
is a monument to Nur Mahal's niece and successor as empress,
Mumtaz-Mahal--The Crown of the Palace--who, like her aunt, was a woman
of rare beauty and talent and endeared herself to her people by her
splendid qualities of mind and heart.
[229] The inventor of canals as well as of bridges over rivers and
causeways over morasses was, according to Greek historians, the famous
Assyrian queen, Semiramis, the builder of Babylon with its wonderful
hanging gardens.
[230] Among the works which treat of the subject-matter of the foregoing
pages the reader may consult with profit, _Woman's Share in Primitive
Culture_, by O. T. Mason, London, 1895; _Man and Woman_, the
introductory chapter, by Havelock Ellis, London, 1898; and _Histoire
Nouvelle des Arts et des Sciences_, by A. Renaud, Paris, 1878.
[231] Cf. _Women Inventors to whom patents have been granted by the
United States Government, Compiled under the Direction of the
Commissioner of Patents_, Washington, 1888. See also subsequent reports
of the Patent Office.
[232] To one woman, Mary E. Poupard, of London, England, were granted in
a single year no less than three patents for horse-shoes--two of the
patents being for sectional and segmental horse-shoes.