Patents: New Exhibit Shows History of Women Inventor
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Biological Systems and Agricultural Engineering Design Mechanical Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): |
History of Technology Women Inventors |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Edmund Andrews |
| Description: | New York Times article of January 20, 1990 about the opening of a new exhibit at the Patent and Trademark Office. The article describes the many inventions that may have been invented or co-invented by women, but were not recognized as they were not legally able to patent. Excerpt: "Were two women inventors unfairly deprived of the credit for inspiring Eli Whitney's cotton gin and Cyrus McCormick's reaper? The new exhibit, entitled 'A Woman's Place Is in the Patent Office,' does not dispute that the field of invention has been dominated by men even more than medicine and the law. Historically, women have obtained only 3 percent of all patents in the United States, although their share of new patents is about 5.5 percent. According to Mr. Amram, the cotton gin was inspired by a Georgia woman named Catherine Greene, who had hired Eli Whitney, then a college student, as a tutor for her children. Noticing that Whitney was handy with tools, she outlined to him the basic problem of separating seeds from cotton fiber. She then gave him information on all the earlier attempts to make the process more efficient, and encouraged him to design something new. Whitney created a prototype device. One 19th-century account, which remains unverified, said the prototype did not work well. It goes on to say that Mrs. Greene then took the head of her wire hairbrush, substituted it for Whitney's wooden shredding teeth and got better results. 'I can't document that,' Mr. Amram said. 'At a minimum, though, she ought to get at least partial credit." |
| Rating: |
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| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | Eli Whitney Cotton Gin Catherine Greene women inventors gender equity |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
Interesting article about an interesting exhibit at U.S. the Patent Office. |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 1990 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE6DE173AF933A1 |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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