The retrieval of a legacy: Perspectives on presence and progress of nineteenth century women inventors in American cultur

Nineteenth century American women inventors present a rich legacy in the history of technology, but one that remains unrecognized. Collectively, over 5,000 women received patents during the 19$sp{rm th}$ century which substantially challenges gendered assumptions about women and technology, particularly the pervasive cultural and ideological stereotype of the prototypical inventor as male.;Individually, women inventors' experiences reveal how the social construction of gender affected their technical creativity and how such technological innovation was perceived, accepted, and diffused. Applying interdisciplinary methodology which utilized patent records, legal cases, autobiographies, correspondence, 19th century newspapers and journals, material artifacts, and secondary scholarly sources, revealed systematic social barriers which operated in the American system of democratic technology since the inception of the U.S. patent office in 1790. Barriers regarding law, education, economic status, social class, gender roles, and labor practices historically affected men and women differently in how they expressed technical creativity. Like male inventors, what women invented during the 19$sp{rm th}$ century bore the imprint of social context. That context reveals a pattern of deterministic socialization which nearly half of the population responded with wild enthusiasm to the national mantra endorsing Yankee ingenuity and the self-made man while the other half was socialized to function as antitechnocrats.;By studying 19$sp{rm th}$ century women inventors, evidence reveals patterns and cultural indexes which register flux in the social fabric of America's response to women's technological contributions. Gender based patterns of technological invention emerged as well as patterns of social change and control. A pivotal focus of my ongoing work in the history of gender and technology continues to address an important lacuna in the study of the history of technology: the contributions and impact of women inventors in the development of American technology.