page_title: Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)
section_title: Independence and the Federalist Era (1776–1801)
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890) / Independence and the Federalist Era (1776–1801)
caption_attribution_description: English: Wikipedia cupcakes, an in-kind donation by Georgetown Cupcake before being devoured by Wikipedians.
context_page_description: The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
  To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
  In 1641, the first patent in North America was issued to Samuel Winslow by the General Court of Massachusetts for a new method of making salt. On April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 into law proclaiming that patents were to be authorized for "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used".
context_section_description: 1776 Swivel chair
  A swivel or revolving chair is a chair with a single central leg that allows the seat to spin around. Swivel chairs can have wheels on the base allowing the user to glide the chair around their work area without getting up. This type of chair is common in modern offices and is often also referred to as an office chair. Using an English-style Windsor chair which was possibly made and purchased from Francis Trumble or Philadelphia cabinet-maker Benjamin Randolph, Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair in 1776. Jefferson heavily modified the Windsor chair and incorporated top and bottom parts connected by a central iron spindle, enabling the top half known as the seat, to swivel on casters of the type used in rope-hung windows. When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, Jefferson's swivel chair is purported to be where he drafted the United States Declaration of Independence. Jefferson later had the swivel chair sent to his Virginia plantation, Monticello, where he later built a "writing paddle" onto its side in 1791. Since 1836, the chair has been in the possession of the American Philosophical Society located in Philadelphia.
  1782 Flatboat
  A flatboat is a rectangular boat with a flat bottom and square ends generally used for freight and passengers on inland waterways. After serving in the Pennsylvania Line during the American Revolutionary War, Jacob Yoder invented and built a large boat at the Redstone Old Fort on the Monongahela River, which he freighted with flour and carried to New Orleans in May 1782. This was the first attempt to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi rivers for commercial purposes.
  1784 Bifocals
  Bifocals are eyeglasses whose corrective lenses contain regions with two distinct optical powers. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the invention of the first pair of bifocals in the early 1760s, though according to the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first indication of Dr. Franklin wearing his double spectacles comes from a political cartoon printed in 1764. Many publications from that period onward refer to Dr. Franklin's double spectacles, including his first reference to them in a letter written in Paris, France, on August 21, 1784, that was addressed to his personal friend, English philanthropist George Whatley.
  1785 Artificial diffraction grating
  In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a regular pattern, which diffracts light into several beams. The first man-made diffraction grating was invented around 1785 in Philadelphia by David Rittenhouse who strung 50 hairs between two finely threaded screws with an approximate spacing of about 100 lines per inch.
  1787 Automatic flour mill
  Classical mill designs were generally powered by water or air. In water-powered mills, a sluice gate opens a channel, starts the water flowing, and a water wheel turning. In 1787, American inventor Oliver Evans revolutionized this labor-intensive process by building the first fully automatic mill using bucket elevators, screw conveyors, and the hopper boy to spread, cool, and dry the meal between grinding and bolting. This was the first time that anyone had conceived and executed a system of continuous, fully automatic production.
  1792 Cracker
  A cracker is a type of biscuit that developed from military hardtack and nautical ship biscuits. Crackers are now usually eaten with soup, or topped with cheese, caviar, or other delicacies. The holes in crackers are called "docking" holes as a means to stop air pockets from forming in the cracker while baking. Crackers trace their origin to the year 1792 when John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts invented a cracker-like bread product from just flour and water that he called "pilot bread". An immediate success with sailors because of its shelf life, it also became distinctly known as a hardtack or sea biscuit for long voyages away from home while at sea.
  1793 Cotton gin
  The cotton gin is a machine that separates cotton fibers from seedpods and sometimes sticky seeds, a job previously done by hand. These seeds are eit
caption: Two cupcakes iced with the Wikipedia logo on their tops
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