What useful things have American women conceived of and developed that have contributed to the progress of technology, science, and engineering? Raise that question, even among educated feminists of the 1990s, and you are likely to be met with a fumbling for names. Raise it among the skeptics of women's creative talents and they will reply Where, after all, is the historical record? In the Patent Office, replies historian Anne L. Macdonald, author of Feminine Ingenuity. In her engaging and meticulously researched history of American women inventors, she presents not only the official evidence of women's remarkable achievements contained in two centuries' worth of Patent Office archives, but also a wealth of material she has discovered in unofficial contemporary accounts of women's inventions: magazines, journals, lectures, major fairs and expositions, and the manuscripts of several important inventors. Feminine Ingenuity celebrates the achievements of women inventors from Mary Kies, whose 1809 patent for a method of weaving straw was the first issued to a wo | Feminine Ingenuity by Anne L. Macdonald, Paperback | Indigo Chapters