Sometimes, when the merits of the woman movement were discussed, its
opponents made it their trump that the female sex is without any
inventive spirit and that this want should be regarded as a convincing
evidence for the inferiority of woman s mind. That this assertion was
never true at all, but made in absolute ignorance of the real facts,
becomes evident, when we recall, that primeval and aboriginal women have
been the inventors of our most important industries, of agriculture,
weaving, basketry, pottery, tannery, brewing, and many other peaceful
arts. And there is not the slightest doubt, that during the times of
Antiquity and the Middle Ages women have been the greatest factor in the
evolution of these industries, in which they remained constantly busy.
Among the few instances of which records have been preserved, is that of
=Barbara Uttmann=, a German woman of Annaberg, Saxony, who in 1561
invented the Cluny-lace. Herewith she opened, for the extremely poor
people of the Erzgebirge, at the most critical time, a new and well
paying industry, in which in 1800 about 35,000 girls and women were
busy.
Another important invention was made in 1792 in America by the widow of
General Nathaniel Green. It was the so-called cotton gin by which the
difficult work to separate the seed from the lint was greatly
simplified. To pick the seed from one pound of cotton had been formerly
considered a good day’s work. With the aid of the cotton gin, which
consists of a series of saws revolving between the interstices of an
iron bed upon which the cotton is placed so as to be drawn through
whilst the seeds are left behind, several hundred pounds of cotton can
be cleaned in the same time. This invention stimulated enormously the
cultivation of cotton and the manufacture of cotton goods in America. In
the South, where so far cotton had been produced only in small
quantities, it now became the main product. While in 1792 the quantity
exported from the United States was 138,324 pounds, it increased by the
year 1800 to nearly 18,000,000 pounds. In the North it led to the
establishment of cotton mills and factories on a large scale.
As only few countries have taken the trouble to prepare statistics about
inventions made by women it is impossible to give reliable facts about
what women have contributed to human culture in this line.
Their most intensive activity has been observed in the United States,
especially since with the founding of woman’s colleges and the opening
of the universities, the education of the female sex became a more
careful and broader one.
The U. S. Patent Office at Washington, D. C., has published “Lists of
Women Inventors,” in three volumes, covering the period from 1790 to
March 1, 1895. From these lists it appears that till 1849 only 32
inventions by women have been registered at the Patent Office. This
number increased to 290 during the period from 1850 to 1870; during
1870–1890 to 2568, and up to 1910 to 7942. These numbers prove that with
the increase of woman’s knowledge and with the closer contact with
modern industrial life her inventive spirit has likewise developed. Also
the inventions became more manifold. While prior to 1850 they were
almost exclusively confined to dress and household, they now cover all
fields of human activity.
This fact became most evident during the terrible years of the World
War. Some time ago the “Women Lawyer Journal” reported that of all the
many inventions registered since 1914, fifty per cent. have been entered
by women. Among these inventions have been such for the better
protection of soldiers and aeronauts as well as for the greater comfort
of the wounded and crippled. Other inventions meant improvement in
wireless telegraphy, gas masks, submarine boats and hundreds of other
objects.
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