The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1900-05-18
Women as Inventors.

l.. nee'lt tfaoitlon-Which, Unfortunate
~, we nave no means of verifying
RANKS woman pre-emnpntly as an invent
or. and the Chinese still continua to ,,.nc-
SNIP Slling-chi, the goddess of silkworms.
~ commemoration of the discovery of
SIX by one Of their Expresses 1000 wears
oelore the CHRISTIAN era. In India there.
Is temple, known a~ the Light of the
Norid, dedicated to Nuurmahai. the gift
ca princess who first gave to the world
. "a snawls and the perfume altar
OF roses: 1t is also alleged that gauzt
was first invented by Panlphil, Woman
.! IoS' IN the time of the Roman en-
pre-, and that (of more recent date) Ma
uahle bessanl, working woman of It.
aiv, received patent for the first Vene
tan point lace: The Peruvians also
MAINTAIN that the. mother Of Incas dis
covered cotton and taught them how to
mahntacture it. The first English wom
ans invention on record is patent 30
81, granted to Sarah Jcrom in 1866 for
an engine to Gut timber into thin pieces
for making band Boxes" and MANY years
elapsed before another patent was grant
ed to female applicant, viz, 10. Isl.
ISSUED to Rebeeca Croxton in 1878 for
weaving point lace.
+h' Mn Mn., ex-senator ]. ]. ingalls, visited
very much surprised and Disappointed
that the building devoted to woman's ex
mott had so little to show for her h0asted
achievements. Woman's progress is Tho
theme of the hour; much is claimed hy
her IN every department of life, and an
endless controversy seems to have been
aroused to meet those claims; but a visit
to the United States patent office viii
give definite and incontrovertible infor-
NATION concerning the advance made in
industrial arts by female inventors for
ever since this great institution had \
history faithful record has been KEPT
or all manner of contrivances to case la
per or ADD to the comfort and conyen-
renee OF humanity that have been ,]iscov-
cred both in this country and ohroad
from TINS AUTHENTIC record it appears
tnat the hrSt invention ever made nv
woman III the United States was a METH
on OF weaving silk with straw. devised
py Mary HES in 1909, and that six years
naa passed before second Mary bear
set; i'll 1915. Four years later Sonh;a
Usher claimed the honor of making \
new carbonated liquid cream of tarfar
and, after another quaternion interval
julia Phantom broke the silence by as,
sorting her invention of foot for y
stove. Ihese We're the pioneers among
feminine claimants in the realm of inyen,
ton. Following them through the first
three decades which exhibit their new
talent, woman produced twelve other
, more or less useful novelties, Viz: a
method of weaving grass for hats, y
method of accelerating spinning-wheei
heads mode of manufa cturing mecca
sins. a sheet-iron shovel, a method Of
whitening leghorn straw, globe for
teaching geography, cook stove, bel
lows. a balsam lavender, a calash balloon
for ladies, a method of cutting straw and
fodder and mode Of manufacturing ex
termal hbers of asclepias syriacca.
These first intimations of inventive pr,.
ius, are prophetic of her future career
under it's guidance. The earliest Ameri-
can patent taken out by woman was
one for shedding "a way of dividing the
warp threads in a loom to allow the nas-
sage Of the shuttle), by Eliza b. Judkins.
in 1884, and was numbered 1915, the If,
flee having reached that figure in it's regis.
ter Of patents granted to men. Eve was
late in plucking fruit from this tree of
knowledge. Adam was more than q
thousand points ahead of her in the are
ma of competition, many of the patents
being for those marvels of ingenuity be-
fore which the world bows in homage
Joanna 4. Nichols Kyle in Frank les
lies Popular Monthly.