344 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



more rapidly and to better purpose, and with correspond- 

 ingly greater results in the development of industry and 

 in the progress of civilization. 



And the remarkable fact is that many of the most im- 

 portant of these improvements due to specialization have 

 been made within the memory of those yet living, while 

 still others have been originated in quite recent years. 

 Nevertheless, great as has been the work of specialization 

 and coordination in every department of human industry 

 during the last few decades, it is, to judge by the reports 

 of the Patent Office, as yet in little more than its initial 

 stage. 



We are now prepared for the consideration of the part 

 woman has taken in this specializing movement and for a 

 discussion of her share in modern inventions and in the 

 improvements of those manifold inventions which were 

 due to her genius and industry untold ages ago. Con- 

 sidering the short time during which her inventive mind 

 has been specially active, and the many handicaps which 

 have been imposed on her, the wonder is not that she has 

 achieved so little in comparison with man, but rather that 

 she has accomplished so much. 



The first woman to receive a patent in the United States 

 was Mary Kies. It was issued May 5, 1809, for a process 

 of straw- weaving with silk or thread. Six years later 

 Mary Brush was granted a patent for a corset. It seems 

 to have been quite satisfactory, for no other patent for 

 this article of feminine attire was issued to a woman until 

 1841, when one was granted to Elizabeth Adams. During 

 the thirty-two years which elapsed between the issuing of 

 a patent to Mary Kies and Elizabeth Adams, but twenty 

 other patents were granted to women. The chief of these 

 were for weaving hats from grass, manufacturing mocca- 

 sins, whitening leghorn straw, for a sheet-iron shovel, a 

 cook stove and a machine for cutting straw and fodder. 



During the decade following 1841, fourteen pateots were 



