346 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



for punching corrugated metals, desulphurizing ores and 

 other similar inventions in the domain of mechanical en- 

 gineering, inventions that, at first blush, would seem to be 

 quite alien to the genius and capacity of woman. 



From now on women's inventions in the United States 

 increased at an extraordinary rate, for from 1871 until 

 July 1, 1888, when the first government report was made 

 on the patents issued to women inventors, she had to her 

 credit nearly two thousand inventions, many of which were 

 of prime importance. 1 



During the seven years following 1888 she was awarded 

 twenty-five hundred and twenty-six patents more than 

 the total number that had been granted her during the 

 preceding seventy-nine years. Between 1895 and 1910, 

 three thousand six hundred and fifteen more patents were 

 placed to her credit, making a grand total for her first cen- 

 tury of inventive achievement of eight thousand five hun- 

 dred and ninety-six patents. No Patent Office reports are 

 available since 1910, but the number of inventions for 

 which "women have received patents since Mary Kies was 

 awarded hers on May 5, 1809, for "straw-weaving with silk 

 or thread," cannot be far from ten thousand. This fact 

 will, doubtless, be a revelation to that large class of men 

 who still seem to share the views of Voltaire and Proudhon 

 that women are incapable of inventing even the simplest 

 article of domestic use. 



The following story well illustrates the prevailing igno- 

 rance regarding the part women have taken in the inven- 

 tion of certain articles that are so common that most 

 people think they were never patented. 



"I was out driving once with an old farmer in Ver- 

 mont," writes Mrs. Ada C. Bowles, "and he told me, 



iCf. Women Inventors to whom patents have been granted by 

 the United States Government, Compiled under the Direction of the 

 Commissioner of Patents, Washington, 1888. See also subsequent 

 reports of the Patent Office. 



