Show WOMN MENTORS How the American Female Mind Originates New Ideas DR MAY WALKERS LAST PATENT ho Bcal Inventor or the Cotton GinWomen Who Have Patented MachineryA Fortune In I Barrel Hoop J WASHINGTON March 27 lS9OSpccial correspondence of THE HEUALTJ The American girl of today has her seven leagercd boots on She i walking at telegraphic tele-graphic speed into every department of American industry and we have at Washington Wash-ington several women lawyers and half a dozen female doctors of more than ordinary ordin-ary reputation There are something like O bright girls working in the departments depart-ments and there is hardly a lawyers office or a claimants den in the city which has not its women typewriters Thero are one er two women engaged in the real estate business here who arc buying and selling and getting gain and the activity of the i great female brain the country over 1 j shown every week in tho inventions which sir they file at the patent office Women are rapidly coming t the front as inventors and there is no reason to believe that our sex cannot get up anything new from corsets cor-sets t locomotives as well a those mechanics me-chanics who are supposed t be made of sterner stuff Already with tho whole masculine world sneering at us we have produced about onefourth of the patents Kranieu since i nu uegmmng 01 LUC government govern-ment and many of the inventions which liavc made fortunes for men have been invented in-vented by theIr wives their sisters or their lady friends Eli Whitney gets the credit of the cotton gin and the industrial world today worships his shades Yet it was the widow of General Green at whose house Whitney was visiting who gave him the idea and he mado his model under her supervision It was she who substituted 4 ir teeth for wooden pegs and it was her Jdca t revolutionize the cotton trade The Jtrst straw bonnet made in the United Suites was turned out by Betsy Metcalf Providence Rhode Island in 1792 and now Massachusetts has tens of thousands of women in the bonnet business and sho turns out her tens of millions of straw hats every year It was a woman who first invented in-vented the making of pillow lace and an Italian girl named Isabella Cunio produced I one of the first engravings from wood A I French woman invented the manikin which has done so much for dressmaking und physiology and the finest pyramid that was ever made in old Egypt was after the design of Nitocris the Egyptian queen Another queen of Egypt designed the obo lisks and it was a womans brain which planned tho hanging gardens of Babylon COKSETS AND CRINOLINE Scmiramis the Queen of Persia invented A a gown which va adopted by tho Median und Persian kings a a insignia of royalty und this was the gown which Haman lipped that Ahashuerus would put upon Mm when he sat at the gate and thought that ho was the one whom the king do lighted t honor He got a rope instead and the saying Hung a high as Haman bas gone down into history The Semira ails gown is still known in the east and cast there in the patent oflice today are many inventions of womens apparel patented by women Thero are in the model room enough corsets t hold the frames of all the Washington society belles and t give each one a article of different material made in a different shape There are enough patent bosom pads t cushion the scats of both houses of Congress and the dcsicms for curious skirt nnd HIVSKPK if theywero pasted together would carpet a county ana there is enough wire in the patents for bustles to make springs for every b in VicePresident Mortons big fat One of the bosom pads invented by a woman looks for a the world like an old fashioned spiral bed springand its application applica-tion states thatitis elastic and that it rises and falls like the natural article Another pad i of rubber made on a frame work tnouldcd t the desired form and when inflated in-flated it approaches tho size of the smallest of toy balloons I is so made that the stretched cover strains a wire framework outward and causes the rounded portion t ypring back if i should b pressed out of shape in a crowd but a I looked at it I thought of the report that might follow supposing the pins which a woman often i Sticks into th part of her Crossshould > W strike too deep and penetrate the rubber Other pads mado of arc papier macho 1 I ethers of stuffed cotton and they are of all a t shapes and sizes I noted some corsets A perforated with holes like a patent chair Beat and madoof white parchment moulded Into shape The advantages claimed for them were their ventilating qualities and Annie S McLean has mao a combined shoulderbrace corset and bosom pad in one Catharine OHara has invented about twenty different patents for crino crno line and Catharine OJriswold patented a combination tea shoulderbrace out of which she has made a lot of money The majority of patents for womens clothes however are granted t men and there are thousands of men t day who do nothing else but scheme and scheme t invent in-vent something which will add to the beauty or tickle the tastes of women WOMEN A MACHINISTS l Tho inventions of women cover all branches of life and strange t say quite as many patents arc granted t them for improved machinery as for articles of womens wear As far back a 1S3S Elizabeth l Buckley patented a sheetiron hovel and the first submarine telescope and lamp invented in this country was patented by Sarah P Mather in 115 By this telescope tho bottom of a ship can be seen Avrccks can bo inspected and torpedoes sighted in times of war Tho model for it Is one of the finest in the patent office I is made of brassand one part of it is a tube nearly one foot in diameter The first patent granted to a woman in the United i nf atm i If Y States was for a machine It was for the weaving of straw with silk or thread and Mary Kics patented i in 1S09 In 1SGO a Jersey woman named Smith patented tim mowing machine and in tho following year Sarah Jane Wheeler doubtless left t take care of tho horses by a lazy husband invented I in-vented a patent curry comb Mary Jane Montgomery of New York has patented a great many machines and in 1SW she mae a good improvement in locomotive wheels In 1800 she got up a machine for punching corrugated metal and she has I her urn told inventions made a great deal of money out of SBWIKG MACJHXE IMmOVEMEXTS The sewing machine was invented by a man but there arc machines patented by omen and there are twentytwo improvements improve-ments on the sewing machine made by women These improvements cover every part of the machine and somo of them arc very valuable The best flatirons flat-irons in use today are made by womenand among the machines patented by them I note that Miranda Fort of Georgia has a Improvement in plows Jane E Gilmanof Connecticut has a combination bureau and jttth tub Augusta M Rodgcrsl of New Tjork has a patent stove for railroad ers and Mary A Holland of New Jersey has Invented a burglar alarm The ice cream freer now in use was patented by a Washington woman and before she got out icr patent every family stirred its cream tvith a spoon instead of using the crank attachment at-tachment while it was freezing The in vcntor of this is Mrs Johnson who took out her patent for it in 1SJ3 and who has made considerable money from it A course rncscnvEit I I Women a among tho inventors of tomes and burial aoparatus and one of the post curious drawings in the patent office J Mary E Motts corpse cooler Mary has I patent rubber bag which she fills with ic jed lays on the stomach of the dead man or oman Sno claims that if she can keep I 1 this cool that the deceased will be pro > T served a well a though ho were pad In Jt ic and she got patent for i in lidS There 1 a war shin hero oatented bv Mary Montgomery and a woman in Iowa has made an improvementon the machinery for cgs Blanche Willis Howard has a patent pa-tent bath shoo and a music rack and Dr Mary Walker is turning the patent office upside down in getting out a new invention of teaching spelling Marys patent looks like a Chinese puzzle and it i more curt ons than practical Among other patents which I remember are jarlifters baghold ers fishboners raisinseeders and a thousand thou-sand and one curious appliances for house hold matters The washingmachines of I the Patent office take up a number of cases and the table utensils arc numerous Ono woman has invented a mustache spoon Her name is Ellen A Mitch son and her husband evidently had a mustache a togas that of Jones He Pays the Freight The spoon has a shield over the top and Ellen says that with this spoon soup can be conveyed con-veyed t tho mouth without danger of soil ing or disfiguring the mustache I may bo that Ellens husband had a dyed mustache and that Ellens favorite soup changed tho color At any rate she patented the spoon and her papers were given to her in 1873 PATENTS TOn DJS Women have patented many things relating relat-ing t children and a California woman invented in-vented a baby carriage which netted her over fifty thousand dollars I looked at the drawings today of patent diapers and in ono case the invention was displayed in the picture of a child Childrens toys form some of the best paying patents that have ever been invented and the man who made tho ball attached to a little rubber string cleared 5500000 upon it Tho dancing neg baby gave its inventor a annual income in-come of 0 and pigs in clover has made its patentee a fortune Pharaohs serpents or these jointed wooden snakes brought in more than 50000 and there are tops which have made fortunes There is a little toy called the wheel of life which is said to have brought half a million dollars dol-lars into the inventors pocket and 10000 a year is the income which is received from the common needle threader Women havo panted all kinds of toys They have mado improvements in baby chairs and one of the funny patents is that of a Boston girl consisting of a kind of tricycle for dolls patented in 1579 The patent holds the doll upright and enables the child t push it around the room on wheels WHERE Tnt TATEXTS COME FROM The most of tho women inventors of tho country live in New England and the Middle Mid-dle States Few patents are taken out by Southern women but quite a number come from the est Massachusetts has more inventive ladies than any other part of New England Helen Marr of Boston has invented in-vented a patent dressing case and washstand wash-stand combined Mrs Carpenter has a metal halter for hitching horses on the street and Miss Mary Barber another Massachusetts girl has a patent pielifter by which you can take a pio from the baking bak-ing pan without burning your fingers Ono I I of the best cutting machines lor trimming the leaves of books is the patent of a Massachusetts achusetts lady named Semple and it is used by the leading publishers of the country coun-try There has been lots of money made in ironing boards and a Boston girl named Parker has a kitchen table and ironing board combined which can be folded up and packed away in a trunk There are patent beds by Massachusetts ladies patent corsets cor-sets patent griddle greasers and a hundred hun-dred and one other new ideas put into merchantable mer-chantable shape Connecticut women have invented dustpans firo escapes and there is one woman in Providence Rhode Island who has a patent chimney Mr5 Harper of Brooklyn New York has a good income out of her inventions for sewing straw braid and Mrs Fitch of Albany has parlor par-lor kiln for burning china which enables every woman painter t burn the china which she decorates at home and which is I think attached t a gaslamp The patent is iaid to be making considerable money for Its inventor and it is one of the new things of its kind A Brooklyn lady has a patent on paper dolls and a New York woman evidently a doctor has patented a vapor bath which can be taken in your own rooD Another New York woman ha a patent car scat attachment consisting of a headrest head-rest which can be hooked on to the end of a seat and a footrest which you can fasten in front so that you can get long very well without taking a sleeper MONET MADE IN BARRELS 1 The women inventors of Pennsylvania are many and there is ono bright woman who has a barrelhooping machine which brings her in 520000 a year This is MarE Mar-E Beaseley of Pennsylvania the original inventor of the machine and the patentee of numerous improvements upon it One of the machines it is said can put iron hoops on 1200 barrels in single day I is a valuable patent and is largely employed i by the trade Another Pennsylvania woman has a machine for making buttonholes button-holes upon flannels and other materials with worsted and Mary E Whitner of Philadelphia delphia has an improvement in stereoscopes stereo-scopes and Joanna Genus of the same city got out 0 patent 011 bitters in 1S70 Emily Tassey of Pitt bur has a patent siphon and Emma Reed of Scranton has made a patent corsetMiss Miss GKUXDT JR |