The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1912-05-09
WOMEN AS INVENTORS.
Woman Now Completes With Man in
the Field of Invention.

1t mas Deen Dut SuOlt Ilue sluCe
woman entered other fields of effort
than those provided by the home. Yet
she now writes books, music, and
plays in open and successful compe-
tition with her mate, produces works
of art. sculpture and painting, COM
petes with him on the athletic field,
excels in nursing, wins fame and for
tune in such professions as are open
to her, such as medicine, surgery,
college and settlement work, and
even occasionally writes her name
large in the scientific world, as Mrs.
Fleming, the famous astronomer, and
Madame Curie, the discoverer of ra-
dium, have done. Perhaps it is be-
cause she hasn't yet wanted to put it
there, that her name is not on the
list of great inventors. She can not
vet claim a telegraph, telephone,
steam engine, electric light, reaper,
binder, cotton gin, spinning jenny,
improved loom, wireless telegraph,
aeroplane or automobile.
The reason is not far to seek. She
hasn't had time. When the 1910 CEN
sus came to the question of patents
and it listed 944,525 patents granted
to men in this country since the be-
of the patent system, but 81
596 patents were credited to women
of one per cent. of the
total issue. But the percentage OF
patents granted to women increases
yearly.
The first patent granted to a wo-
man in this country went to Mary
Kies for a process of straw and silk
weaving. The patent was issued May
9Th, 1S09-before the system OF
patents went into vogue.
The second patent given a woman
was issued more than six years later.
Miss Mary Brush had an idea for i'm
proving a corset, and on July 2lst'
1915, received her patent on that
invention. Patent number three to
a woman went to Miss Sophia Usher,
four years later and on September
11th. 1919, she became owner of a
United States patent on a process
for making violet water and cream of
tartar into a toilet lotion.
On May ooth, 1926, one Phoebe
Collier procured a patent on saving
wheel fellies, which apparently in
spired other women to leave her
sphere for an excursion into mans
domain, so that when Miss Elizabeth
H. Buckley tok her patent home with
her, the ninth issued to a woman,
she had sole rights to certain way
of making a sheet-iron shovel-this
was February 2Sth, 1928.
Unfortunately, the great patent Of
flee fire destroyed many early docu-
ments and copies of patents, so that
much information about these early
issues is hard to get. 1t is pity that
we do not know what Miss Harriet
Cook had in mind when she received
the fifteenth patent granted to wo-
man, February goth, 1888, for a Ca
lash balloon for ladies'" Is it an ar
ticle of dress? Or an airship? One
suspects a hustle, but speculation has
no place about so serious matter as
a patent.
The first numbered patent to go to
a woman was number 1,O75, on Feb
ruary 2nd, 1889, to Eliza Ann B.
Judkins for method of shedding" J"
Whether "shedding" indicated some
early depilatory process or manner
of putting up outbuildings or refers
to taking the heart out of flbers of
some sort, is not known.
The great Civil War which flooded
the patent office with devices of all
sorts applicable to carnage and
bloodshed from inspired citizens who
desired thus to aid their country (at
price, while being safely taken
care of back home, had little infiu-
ence in stimulating women to invent.
But few patents granted during those
years were to women, and of those
few but a scant half dozen have any
bearing on the war. Martha Willis,
of Rochester, \. Y, received patent
No. 31,S43 in 1851 for bandage,
and Clarissa Britain, of St. Joseph,
Mich, patent No. 39,400 for an i'm
proved ambulance in 1863. Appar-
emily having an eye more to military
beauty than the care of the injured,
cne Sarah Morsman, OF Cleveland,
Ohio, paid for patent No. 39,66I IN
the same year on an improved mill
tary cap. But Mary c. Ross and
Louise Anderson, the first Of New
York, and the second Of ST. Louis,
were more tender hearted. Miss