The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1923-06-29
WOMEN ACTIVE IN
INVENTION FIELD
Patent Office Shows Long List Of
Their Achievements.
NOT ALL ARE HOME ARTICLES

People who imagine that women
show little activity in the field Of In
ventlon would have the surprise OF
their lives If they could 90 over the
records OF the United States patent
Office, said a recent bulletin of the
women's bureau of the Department OF
Labor. The records of the patent Of
fee show that women have invented
everything from a rotary plowshare to
an egg beaten. the women's bureau
said.
"Of course, most of the things wOm-
en- have invented have been articles
for use in the household" the bulle-
tin added, "a holder for hot utensils,
q kettle polisher and scraper, kitch-
Ell cabinet, washing machine, a car
pet beater a mattress turner, mouse
trap, and so on through a list of near
ly 1,400 different items. Next TO house
hold equipment the largest number OF
inventions was Of articles for personal
wear or use. such things as hooks and
eyes, shoe strings, shoes and tooth
brushes, but not all of the inventions
were as utilitarian as that. One wOm-
an even invented an artificial eyelash.
Not Confined to Home.
"Women's inventive activities carry
them much further afield, however,
than the household. Women on farms
have patented lot Of contrivances to
make work easier or more efficient,
and they haven't confined their imagi-
nations to poultry raising and dairy
ing, but have invented cultlvators,
seed planters, tractors and windmills,
as well as incubators and churns.
"The same thing Is true Of all the
other phases Of industry and the pro-
LESSONS. We have found women TAX
ing out patents for office supplies and
equipment, for Improvements to steam
and street railway equipment, for
methods Of road building, for ma
chlnery of all sorts, as well as for
many kinds of tools, musical instru-
ments, toys and educational devices.
1T is interesting to know how wom-
en- came to invent all these different
things. Sometimes just the name Of
the invention will tell us what caused
it. For instance, anyone who has ever
MIXED COW can easily imagine what
caused one woman to invent a COW
tail holder. Another woman invented
a cover for pie pans because she said
juicy pies were always overlooking in
her oven, which wasted the best Of
her pie and left her with dirty oven
to clean. Many of us can sympathiZe
with the woman who invented re-
enforced wooden bowl after the bowl
in which she was working butter split
in two, splitting the butter into her lap.
A woman who had spent many hot
July days in a hospital invented Spe-
clal ventilator which would make the
room less stuffy.
All "New and Useful"
"Of course, we cannot say how prac-
teal all these inventions were. The
patent office thought they were new
and useful and so granted patents,
and some Of the articles we know have
been successfully marketed and are in
general use. But the thing which has
astonlshed us most in going over these
records is to find the great variety Of
the articles patented by women. This
variety shows more graphically than
perhaps any other single thing could
how women's activities are spreading
out to cover every field of occupation
and endeavor. These patented inven-
lions are one more witness to the fact
that wOmens interests cannot be rele-
gated to two or three narrow fields,
their interests have brOadened to In
clude more than the children, church
and Kitchen which the kaiser thought
were sufficient for any woman"