Mary Kies becomes the first woman to be granted a U.S. patent - May 5th, 1809

On this day in 1809, Mary Kies became the first woman in the United States to receive a patent in her own name. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that weaves the threads of history every day of
the week. I'm Gabe Lucier and today we're taking our

(00:23):
hats off to Mary Keese, an important figure in women's
history and in the development of US manufacturing. The day
was May fifth, eighteen oh nine. Mary Keith became the
first woman in the United States to receive a patent

(00:46):
in her own name. Although the specifics of her invention
are now lost to time, we know her patent was
for a new means of weaving straw with silk and
other fabrics used in hat making. Straw hats and bonnets
were in high demand at the turn of the nineteenth century,
as many women of the era spent long hours in

(01:07):
their fields and gardens and wanted an inexpensive yet fashionable
way to shield themselves from the sun. The only problem
was that a European embargo had halted the import of
woven hats from Britain and France. That meant the women
of New England would have to make their own, a
prospect that seemed much less daunting thanks to Keith's patented invention.

(01:30):
It was quickly adopted by the region's hat makers, and
in the years ahead it fueled the growth of a
new women led industry. Beyond her patent, little is known
about the life of Mary Keith. She was born in
South Killingly, Connecticut, in seventeen fifty two, was later married
and widowed twice over, and gave birth to two sons

(01:52):
in between, Isaac and Daniel. One of the few other
things we can say for certain about Mary Keith is
that she had good By eighteen oh seven, the United
States was finding it harder and harder to maintain diplomatic
neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars between France and Britain. The
warring nations had both imposed trade restrictions in an effort

(02:14):
to weaken each other's economies, but those measures wound up
disrupting American trade as well. Then Britain added insult to
injury by frequently harassing American ships, seizing their cargo, and
even impressing their crews into British service. Fed up, at last,
President Thomas Jefferson fought back by signing the Embargo of

(02:36):
eighteen oh seven, which prohibited the import of all foreign goods.
The trade freeze was meant to hurt the bottom line
of Britain and France and compel them to treat the
US more favorably, but in practice the embargo did far
more damage to the American economy. No one wanted to
buy goods from a country that had banned all imports,

(02:58):
and as a result, USA exports plunged from an estimated
one hundred and eight million dollars in eighteen oh seven
to just twenty two million dollars the following year. The
one silver lining to the ban was that had greatly
increased demand for domestic goods, including locally produced ones like
straw hats. In New England, straw hat making had first

(03:21):
caught on about twenty years before Mary Keith obtained her patent.
It all started in seventeen eighty nine when a twelve
year old girl named Betsy Metcalf spotted a fancy straw
hat and a store window in Providence, Rhode Island. She
knew her family couldn't afford such a fine hat, so
she went home and after some trial and error, she

(03:42):
came up with a novel technique to make her own.
Metcalf shared her idea with the women in her rural community,
and pretty soon a literal cottage industry sprang up. Women
throughout New England began braiding straw and constructing hats in
their homes, and then sold their wares at kraft and
local shops. The Patent Act of seventeen ninety allowed any

(04:05):
US citizen, regardless of gender, to claim the sole and
exclusive right to make and market an invention. That shakeup
meant that Betsy Metcalf was free to patent her innovative
straw braiding process and turned it into a business, except
she never did. When later asked why, Metcalf said she
didn't want her name to be sent to Congress, and

(04:27):
I guess she didn't trust what they might do with it.
But that said, it's worth remembering that in many states
at the time, women couldn't legally own property nor enter
into contracts independently of their husbands or another male family member.
So even if the government did grant a patent to
a woman in most parts of the country, the rights

(04:47):
to the invention still wouldn't have technically belonged to her,
and because of that, many women inventors likely didn't see
the point in seeking a patent, but Mary Keise proved
the exception when she came up with her own improvement
to hat making. She applied for and was granted the
first patent ever awarded to a woman. It was issued

(05:08):
on May fifth, eighteen o nine, and was signed by
President James Madison, who had become president earlier that year. Unfortunately,
no one sure what exactly Keith invented, as her patent
was destroyed along with about ten thousand others when the
US Patent Office caught fire in eighteen thirty six. We
know her patent described the invention as a quote new

(05:31):
and useful improvement in weaving straw with silk or thread,
but without further details or in accompanying illustration that could
be interpreted as just about anything. For example, some historians
think Keith invented a machine that automated the manual labor
of weaving straw with silk, while others believe she invented
a new weaving method which somehow improved on existing manual techniques.

(05:56):
Whatever the case may be, there's no question about the
patents in ports Horton's not only to women's standing in society,
but to the young country's financial standing as well. New
England's economy in particular, had been crippled by Jefferson's embargo
on European goods, and while the region's domestic straw hat
industry was still growing, it wasn't doing enough volume to

(06:19):
offset the losses of other industries. However, once Keith's invention
went public, straw hat making became a serious money maker.
In fact, the straw bonnets manufactured in Massachusetts alone in
eighteen ten carried a value of more than five hundred
thousand dollars, the equivalent of over twelve million dollars in

(06:40):
today's money. It was such a welcome jolt to New
England's economy that First Lady Dolly Madison, a straw hat
fan herself, actually wrote a letter to Keith congratulating her
on her invention and thanking her for her contribution to
American industry. The straw fabrics and styles made possible by
Mary Kees Were were widely used for more than a decade.

(07:02):
As a result, New England's hat industry became one of
the few industries that continued to thrive during the War
of eighteen twelve. But, as you probably know, fashion trends
have a way of changing as time goes by, and
women's hats earn no exception. By the time of Keith's
death in eighteen thirty seven, a year after her patent

(07:23):
went up in smoke, tastes had already changed, and straw
hats and sunbonnets were no longer in demand. It was
a sad end for Mary keyes who died unknown and
penniless at the age of eighty five. But even though
her invention fell out of fashion, she had started a
movement that would continue to grow long after her death.

(07:44):
By eighteen forty, approximately nineteen women had followed her lead
by securing their own US patents. Most of those early
inventions were related to domestic housework, such as cooking utensils
and tools for mending clothing, but the number of applicants
and the variety of their submissions continued to steadily grow
from there. Today, hundreds of thousands of women apply for

(08:08):
patents every year for all sorts of things, and while
Mary Keith's patent accounted for just zero point five percent
of the patents issued in eighteen oh nine, solo women
inventors now account for about thirteen percent of the total
number of US patents issued each year. Mary Keith didn't
set out to revolutionize an industry, save an economy, or

(08:31):
advance women's role in society, but by taking the initiative
to follow through on a good idea, she wound up
doing just that. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
You can learn even more about history by following us
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(08:55):
if you have any comments or suggestions, you can always
send them my way by writing to this at iHeartMedia
dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for
producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll
see you back here again soon for another day in
history class.