Mary Kies Could Patent Her Bonnet But Needed a Man to Sue Over It: America's First Female Inventor Gets the Runaround

On May 5th, 1809, Mary Kies became the first woman ever granted a U.S. patent—for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread to make bonnets. Now, this might not sound like the stuff of historical drama until you consider that American women at the time couldn't vote, couldn't serve on juries, and in most states couldn't even own property independently of their husbands. Yet here was Mary, a Connecticut woman about whom we know precious little else, having her intellectual property formally recognized by the federal government.The Patent Act of 1790 hadn't explicitly barred women, but it also hadn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat. The law protected "he or they" who invented useful things, which in the linguistic conventions of the era could theoretically include women, though nobody seemed terribly eager to test that theory. Mary Kies tested it.Her timing was impeccable, if perhaps unintentional. President Madison's wife, Dolley, was actively promoting American-made goods as tensions with Britain escalated toward what would become the War of 1812. Domestically produced bonnets fit perfectly into this campaign of economic nationalism. First Lady Dolley Madison herself reportedly praised Kies's invention.The supreme irony? While Mary Kies could patent her invention, she likely couldn't enforce her own patent rights in court without a male representative. American law giveth, and American law taketh away—or at least requires you to bring your husband to the litigation.The actual patent document has been lost to history, destroyed in an 1836 Patent Office fire, making Mary Kies herself something of a ghost in the machine of American innovation.This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AIThis episode includes AI-generated content.