Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed America

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Overview

"What useful things have American women conceived of and developed that have contributed to the progress of technology, science, and engineering?" Raise that question, even among educated feminists of the 1990s, and you are likely to be met with a fumbling for names. Raise it among the skeptics of women's creative talents and they will reply "Where, after all, is the historical record?" "In the Patent Office", replies historian Anne L. Macdonald, author of Feminine Ingenuity. In her engaging and meticulously researched history of American women
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Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed America

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Overview

"What useful things have American women conceived of and developed that have contributed to the progress of technology, science, and engineering?" Raise that question, even among educated feminists of the 1990s, and you are likely to be met with a fumbling for names. Raise it among the skeptics of women's creative talents and they will reply "Where, after all, is the historical record?" "In the Patent Office", replies historian Anne L. Macdonald, author of Feminine Ingenuity. In her engaging and meticulously researched history of American women inventors, she presents not only the official evidence of women's remarkable achievements contained in two centuries' worth of Patent Office archives, but also a wealth of material she has discovered in unofficial contemporary accounts of women's inventions: magazines, journals, lectures, major fairs and expositions, and the manuscripts of several important inventors. Feminine Ingenuity celebrates the achievements of women inventors from Mary Kies, whose 1809 patent for a method of weaving straw was the first issued to a woman, to Gertrude Elion, the Nobel Prize Laureate whose anticancer drugs led to her 1991 election as the first woman in the Inventors Hall of Fame. It is not, however, a litany of accomplishments of previously unsung individual women, for Macdonald doesn't ignore the downside of women's struggle. Society, with its relentless assignment of females to the domestic sphere, discouraged mechanically talented girls by barring them from the kind of technical education it lavished upon their brothers. It took the Civil War and the consequent absence of their men to force these alumnae of required cooking and sewing classes to learn notonly to operate farm machinery but to invent major improvements to it. By presenting women inventors against such a historical backdrop, Macdonald keys their experiences to the larger themes of women's changing economic, political, and social position. This makes Feminin

The brown paper grocery bag, the cow milker, liquid paper, windshield wipers, the Snugli--all of these items were invented by women. Now, the acclaimed author of No Idle Hands offers a fascinating chronicle of these and other inventions and profiles their determined female inventors.

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Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal
YA-- Since Mary Kies (inventor of a straw-weaving process for hat making) became the first female patentee in 1809, American women have developed an astonishingly wide range of devices and products, from pyrotechnic night signals, the Snugli, and brassieres, to Stove Top Stuffing and the anti-herpes drug Zovirax. Limited solely to those who applied for and were granted patents, this well-documented chronology describes not only the inventions themselves, but also the social milieu, the setbacks, and the successes of the women who designed them. By choosing this informative format, MacDonald has done more than merely tell the story of a lot of inventions; she has penned a readable and unique social history of American women. Frequent quotations from diaries, letters, and other documents along with numerous black-and-white illustrations make this book an excellent resource.-- Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Booknews
Chronicles women's patented inventions, beginning with the first patent obtained by a woman (in 1809). Discusses some of the economic, political, and social obstacles, and sets the women and their inventions in historical context. The bibliography is extensive. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780345383143
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 3/28/1994
  • Pages: 540
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.25 (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction
1 Foremothers of American Invention 3
2 After the War: Inventing Within Woman's Sphere 24
3 New Fields of Invention 48
4 Centennial Sisterhood 71
5 Patenting Dress Reform 103
6 Publicizing, Proselytizing, and Educating: Uplifting the Position of Women Begins 117
7 Inventing Outside and Beyond Woman's Sphere 146
8 Celebrating Women's Ingenuity: Expositions, Fairs, and Patent Office Lists 167
9 Still a Long Way to Go 191
10 Patenting Know-how 215
11 "New Women" in a New Century 240
12 Hope Springs Eternal 269
13 Same Song, Second Verse 287
14 Depression, War, and Peace 307
15 The Modern Woman Inventor 333
16 Patents Pending? 367
Appendix: Patents of Women Inventors Cited in Text 383
Notes 395
Bibliography 445
Index 493
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