How many women inventors in the history?

Women were not on the industrial production world since 1800s. It’s easy to say that lots of investments like handmade rugs are invented by women by there were no patent and men were taking the fame of a new invention. After 1800s, patent industry is developed with industrial revolution. People started to take patents for their inventions. It was the first years of patent development that Mary Dixon Kies wanted a patent for her new invention. Her invention was a process for weaving straw with silk or thread. How many women inventors in the history?


Mary Dixon Kies’ effort became a legend especially for US women. First lady Dolley Madison celebrated her for this invention and her boost on hat industry of USA. USA had problems on this period but after invention today they have biggest part of hat production industry. Her patent was burnt in 1836 big patent office fire but people never forget her.
Till 1840, women gave effort for kitchen tools inventions like cook stoves and similar. But patent office rarely accepted these new inventions and only 20 of them were accepted in 20 years. Also there was some problem in taking patent because women’s attempt to take patent from patent office was not allowing because they had no equal rights to men. Lots of women patented her invention over her husband. Also there were deep limitations on women’s education and it was not possible to go a school with education on inventions.

1845 was a milestone for women inventors because Sarah Mather invented submarine lamp and telescope. It’s today celebrating as a turning point for undersea navy operations. Also it became an important patent for human to discover deep. Martha Coston developed this first patent idea and this new system became a turning point on saving people and winning the sea wars.
Women inventors also start the first fire of feminism. 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition became the target of women inventor and some problems created a lobby of first feminist activism steps. Centennial Women’s Executive Committee is founded after this exposition and it’s accepting one of the first feminist organizations ever.

After big protests, patent office removed the requirement to give identity records of inventor and accepted nick names. It boosted invention number but created some problems on inventor records.
Women inventors also changed the way of WW2. Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil discovered a manipulation on radio frequencies and send secret messages to allies. Frequency manipulation was creating unbreakable codes and top-secret messages were sent by this system.
Katherine Blodgett opened the way of university education for women. She became the first woman hired by General Electric’s Research Laboratory. Also she became first women earned Ph.D. in Physics of Cambridge University.
Today there are some researches on inventor’s genre and some invention categories are mostly belong to women. There is also lots of new development on invention patent and while only 2.6 of all patent owners were women in 1977, it raised to %10.3 in 1998.
Federal government made researches on sectors which women are more successful and redirected them to sectors like chemical inventions. Today most of inventors in chemical sector of USA are women.
Also utility patents were mostly taken by women and today %83 of last 20 year utility patents belongs to women. Also design patents and plant patents are very important for them.
All states have women inventors in different sectors. But California, New Jersey and New York are leading places for women inventors. Today %20 of all inventors in USA are women and number should rise over %50 by 2050.