Technikatörténeti szemle 15. (1985)

TANULMÁNYOK - Amram, M. Fred: Women’s contributions to the history of technology

The shape and insulation were designed for added heat retention and hand protection. The irons were sold mostly in sets of three bases with a single transferable handle. At the time of her patent award, Mary Potts lived in a small Iowa community. In 1880 she received a patent reissue and was, by then, living in Philadelphia were „Mrs. Potts' Ptented Irons" became the leading item of the American Enterprise Manufacturing Company. The irons became nationally famous and, even now, after the advent of electric irons, Mrs. Potts' irons are a sought after collector's item. This example again illustrates the point that the history of technology tends to reward commercial success. While dozens of inventors contributed to the creation and improvement of the sad iron, and Mary Potts' claims for her product are not entirely accurate, she acheived the greatest commercial success and her name is the only one generally known. Inventions reflect the general culture (time, place, values) as well as the immediate environment (personal need). It is no accident that Catherine Greene focussed on the need for a cotton gin. She lived on a plantation at a time when cotton planters in the southern United States were seriously concerned about the problem of separating seeds from fiber. Further evidence that inventions reflect immediate environment is that most of the patents granted to women in early America were for innovations in women's clothing and many of those were for undergarments (e. g., improvements in tying corsets ever more tightly). Some of the inventions addressed special problems as evidenced by the 1841 patent granted to Elizabeth Adams of Boston, Massachusetts, for a ..method of manufacturing corsets to be worn by females during pregnancy of suffering under umbilical hernia or abdominal weakness". The Civil War period spurred a women's libreation movement and with it a series of patents for more liberating clothing including looser undergarments. In a letter to Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone wrote, „Women are in bondage; their clothes are a great hindrance to their engaging in any business which will make them pecuniarily independent". In a more radical vein, a journal colled The Revolution dated, June 1868 states: „He (man) not only prescribes woman's sphere but how she shall dress in that sphere. Now one of the rights we claim for women is to wear a bifurcated garment and and be sailors and soldiers and whatever they choose." (5) By 1868 women were patenting improvements in corsets. In her 1874 patent application Clara Clark wrote „The object of the present invention is to provide a corset which shall be more comfortable for and advantageous to the health of its wearer than an ordinarily-constructed corset..." An improved version ... a combination union suit, skirtsupporting corset, and corset cover all in one, was invented by Susan Taylor Converse in 1875. Among the special features of the Converse patent was a bodice arranged so that the breast was free from compression and irritation", and a set of buttons to which the