This department comprised 5 groups and 35 classes, the group headings being: Steam engines; Various motors; General machinery; Machine tools; Arsenal tools.
Miss Griswold says:
After considerable consideration I almost feel that the least said about women exhibitors in the Machinery Department at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition the better. The fact is, there were no women exhibitors. However, in this department the exhibitors were mostly old firms or very large manufacturers, and while women are undoubtedly making their way into mechanics they have not been in the field long enough to have reached a point where their work of a nature to form exposition exhibits can compete with man's work. The chief of the Machinery Department and one other member of the jury mentioned a Miss Gleason, who is connected with one of the firms that exhibited, and spoke of her ability in the mechanical line and her knowledge of mechanics in the highest of terms. Women are employed in various capacities in nearly every line of work that was exhibited in this department, and Miss Gleason probably stands as an example of the real but unostentatious work of many women who understand the intricacies of machinery fully as well as men with the same degree of training.
That women are making a place for themselves in this department of industry is shown by the Patent Office statistics. The first patents for inventions were granted to men in 1790, but no patent was issued to a woman until May 5, 1809, and the number of inventions granted to them in any one year did not exceed 6 until the year 1862, when 14 were issued. This number was lowered but once, and that was in 1865, when naturally women had responsibilities of a nature that precluded outside interests, but the direction of which is shown in the fact that two of the 13 applications in that year were—one for "Improved table for hospitals," the other for "Improvement in drinking cups for the sick." In 1863 an application was made for "Improvement in ambulances."
It is a significant fact that from the time General Spinner appointed the first woman to be employed under the Government in 1864, her advancement was shown in invention, as well as in all other phases of her existence. At the beginning of the year 1864, fifty-five years after the first patent had been granted to her, she had received but 103 patents. During the next fifteen years, 1,046 patents were granted; during the next ten, 1,428, and during the next five years (from 1889 to 1894), 1,309 patents were issued to women, the number in five years exceeding that granted during the first seventy years. It is to be regretted that the Patent Office records do not show a classification of her work during the past ten years, their list practically ceasing March 1, 1895.
The inventions cover a wide and ambitious range, and include, even among their earliest attempts, "Improved war vessel, the parts applying to other structures for defense;" "Improvement in locomotive wheels;" in "Engraving copper;" "Steam whistles;" "Mechanism for driving sewing machines;" "Improved material for packing journals and bearings;" "Improvement in the mode of preventing the heating of axles and journals;" in "Pyrotechnic night signals;" in "Paper-bag machines;" in "Railway car safety apparatus;" "Conveyors of smoke and cinders for locomotives;" "Sewing machines;" in "Alloys for hardening iron;" in "Alloys to resemble silver;" in "Devices for removing snow from railways;" "Car coupling;" "Attachment for unloading box cars;" "Railroad car," etc.
Department F, Electricity, Prof. W.E. Goldsboro, Chief, Miss Hope
Fairfax Loughborough, Department Juror.
This department comprised 5 groups and 24 classes, the group
headings being: Machines for generating and using electricity;
Electrochemistry; Electric lighting; Telegraphy and telephony;
Various applications of electricity.
Miss Loughborough's report is as follows:
The field of electricity has been so long and so peculiarly a man's field that it is not surprising to find that in the 5 groups and 24 classes which the Department of Electricity at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition comprised, only 2 exhibits were made by women, both of whom were Americans.