Patents for new and useful inventions granted to women by the United Purposes shown by women's inventions.. Inventions facilitating agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry... Inventions facilitating manufacturing.. 11 13 16 Inventions concerned with structural equipment and materials.. Inventions concerned with trade; hotels and restaurants; steam 31 Office supplies and equipment.... 33 Inventions concerned with fishing.... Inventions concerned with the business of housekeeping... Inventions covering supplies for use in industry, agriculture, com- Scientific instruments (other than surgical), laboratory equipment, Ordnance, firearms, and ammunition.... Inventions concerned with articles of personal wear and use.. Inventions facilitating the practice of medicine, surgery, and den- TABLES. I. Number of patents issued to women and to men and the per cent increase in such issuance in each decade or period since 1790... II. Number and per cent of patents issued to women in the ten selected years: 1905, 1906, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1918, 1919, 1920, and 1921.... III. Number and per cent of patents issued to women in the ten selected years, classified according to the purposes served.... 12 13 14 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, WOMEN'S BUREAU, Washington, November 27, 1922. SIR: Submitted herewith is a report on women's contributions in the field of invention as shown by a study of the records of the United States Patent Office. Many requests have come to the Women's Bureau for information in regard to what has been done by women in the field of creative labor and in response to these requests this study was made. Respectfully submitted, Hon. JAMES J. DAVIS, MARY ANDERSON, Director. IV Secretary of Labor. WOMEN'S CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE FIELD OF INVENTION. A Study of the Records of the United States Patent Office. PART I INTRODUCTION. Have women made material contributions to the sum total of creative achievements? Have they designed, devised, discovered, and invented to reduce labor, to forestall danger, disease, and death, to embellish life with creative comforts, and to enrich humanity with new stores of knowledge? Measured by the relative opportunities and facilities for experiment and research and by the relative popular encouragement accorded women, are these contributions comparable with men's contributions in the same fields? Finally, and more important for the future, what progress or retrogression in comparative opportunities and achievement have marked the decades that stretch from the early eighteen hundreds to the current year? To find a convincing answer to these questions is the main purpose of this report. A further purpose is to throw light on the extent and nature of any handicaps under which women may labor, and by so doing to open the way to the development of practical suggestions for the reduction of such handicaps as exist. The accomplishment of this object will not only expand opportunities for women of creative abilities; it will enlarge the measure of creative service rendered the Nation. Source of information. The most obvious sources of information on the subject are the records of the United States Patent Office. This is not to say that the distinctions between the words "creative" and "inventive" are ignored in this discussion. Creative activity goes on ceaselessly in art, science, and literature, and in the less illustrious walks of life, achieving important results that are not described as inventions but are clearly within the field of creative thought. Schools of art, of philosophy; systems of education; scientific theories-some underlying momentous discoveries of practical value-are all creative, though not properly described as inventions. Furthermore, much creative activity that is clearly inventive is not reflected in the patent records. Discoveries in the practice of medicine and surgery, new ideas in baby care and child play, simplifications in home and business management, have made conspicuous progress in the last century; yet they are but faintly reflected, if at all, in the patent records. Because such forms of creative activity are not recorded they are not definitely measureable and can serve only indirectly, therefore, in assessing the relative contributions of women to the sum of creative achievement. There is, however, enough synonymic quality in the word "inventive" as used by the United States Patent Office, and the word "creative" as used in its broader sense to render the records a valuable index to the range and quality of women's originative tendencies. The spectacular successes of a few women as inventors of new mechanisms or discoverers of new processes and substances have not effected a change in the prevailing disbelief in the creative abilities of women as a whole. In the mind of the public these spectacular cases have stood rather as the brilliant exceptions. The purpose of this search is not, therefore, to give further attention to the few well known cases of successful women inventors and discoverers but to measure the number and analyze the quality of all the inventions of women recorded within given periods. For this measure one must turn first to the Patent Office to discover whether the bare figures furnish any warrant for a detailed study of women's creative achievements. The flow of inventions through the United States Patent Office is of such torrential volume and pressure that the contribution of women thereto entirely escapes observation. Indeed, so submerged are the patents issued to women in the flood of patents running annually to men that the first untested conclusion following a cursory reading of the lists is that these records confirm the general unbelief in women's inventive and creative abilities. But a closer scrutiny of the records from decade to decade forces a revision of such conclusion. Thin streams of water trickling here and there into a strong, steady current can be overlooked when all told they constitute less than 2 per cent of the volume of water, unless a survey up and down stream reveals the fact that these trickles are not an evenly distributed contribution of insignificant volume to the flowing waters, but have grown from almost infinitesimal beginnings and are showing a rate of increase which makes a perceptible swelling of the stream a matter of easy mathematical calculation. Then such tributaries are worthy of study. A careful scrutiny of the patent records reveals a fair analogy in the growing contributions made by women to the flood of inventions pouring through the United States Patent Office. The 5,000 patents granted women during the 10 years chosen for this study constitute less than 2 per cent of the total number of patents issued during that period, but they are more than the total |