- 1 See Chanteux, 2009.
- 2 La Femme de l’avenir.
1At the intersection of women’s and gender history, social history and the history of technology, research on women inventors reveals an identifiable group whose size can be estimated from the patent applications reported in Marguerite Durand’s daily newspaper La Fronde.1 Starting on 18 May 1900, La Fronde published lists of patents filed by women on its front page. These were sent to the newspaper’s editor by a patent agency, Marillier et Robelet, Office international pour l’obtention de brevets d’invention en France et à l’étranger (International Office for obtaining patents for inventions in France and abroad). Other civil engineering firms offered the same service (sending lists of patents filed by women), and at least one other women’s magazine published these lists.2 The existence of these patents was presented in the women’s press of the time as further proof of women’s ability to excel in all fields of human endeavour, at a time when the very active women’s movement was seeking recognition of the place and weight of women in all strata of society.
- 3 Stanley, 1993.
- 4 Cockburn, 1993; Hynes, 1991; Scott, 1988, 1990; Trescott, 1979.
- 5 For a history of the studies, see Julliard, 2024.
- 6 Stanley, 1993; Cockburn, 1993; MacKenzie, Wajcman, 1999.
- 7 Lemercier, 2021; Martini, Albert, 2021; Boussahba-Bravard, Rogers (eds.), 2018.
- 8 Craig, 2017; Bellavitis, Martini, Sarti (eds.), 2018.
- 9 Perrot, 1983; Jarrige, 2009.
- 10 Galvez-Behar, 2008, p. 39.
- 11 Khan, 2015.
- 12 Merouani, Perrin, 2023, 2024.
- 13 Chanteux, 2022.
2But it was not until the second half of the twentieth century, and more recent research, that women’s inventiveness was further questioned. In 1993, Autumn Stanley devoted a book to women inventors, examining women’s activity in the world of technology by listing the inventions and American patents attributed to women over the centuries.3 Her militant discourse on the relationships between technology and power is in line with contemporary American feminist studies, which point to the lack of interest shown by historians of science and technology in a gendered history, or even in the possibility of women’s existence in this history.4 Although a research trend, beginning in the 1970s, examined the production and use of technology through the prism of gender it paid little or no attention to one particular aspect of women’s interaction with technology: participation in inventive activity through patents.5 American feminist studies in the 1990s argued that women were deliberately excluded from access to technological knowledge and that this exclusion was a means of perpetuating traditional gender hierarchies. But researchers have also shown that women do have technical knowledge and skills in the domestic sphere, and have always been innovators in the areas given to them: home, education and food.6 Focusing on the use of technology in everyday life, these historians have shown that women, like men, develop their own tools and agency in innovation in the private spheres they occupy. But women’s inventiveness was not restricted to the home. A recent research trend in the history of labour has revealed the active presence of women in a wide range of trades: among artisans, in Parisian small-scale industry, in companies, in all sectors and regions, among the technical public.7 In all these environments, women appeared as wives, daughters or mothers of craftsmen, as widows running a shop, a workshop, a business, passing on know-how, but also as independent agents.8 At the same time, Michelle Perrot and more recently historians of industry like François Jarrige have shown that women in France and Britain were resistant to technical innovation: in the nineteenth century, they took an active part in protest movements against machinism, fighting against the introduction of machines because they threatened their livelihoods.9 But the question of resistance to industrial exploitation should not the fact that another sort of emancipation was ahead, through inventing and patenting. The French law of 1844 encouraged the artisan milieu by lowering the tax and making patenting more accessible to less fortunate inventors.10 A first study to focus on the subject was led by Zorina B. Khan, in an important study of economic history, looked at women patent holders in France between 1791 and 1855.11 More recently, Youssouf Merouani and Faustine Perrin have created a database of French patents and are conducting a cliometric study.12 This article, based upon a Ph.D. thesis,13 takes part into this burgeoning research trend and aims to question the specificity of the French context. Women are actors in history in the same way as men, although often masked by them. Identifying their role in patenting and portraying their portrait allows us to certify that they participate in the material organization of society, that they are part of networks (professional, family, social), that their patents are responses to needs identified and analyzed by them. To this end, the analysis of the social status and occupations of the women inventors, the formal content of patent files, the place of patentees in the invention networks of their time and the way in which they fit into a highly codified environment is complementary to the economic studies already carried out on the subject. By combining data from several sources, this analysis sheds light not only on the place of women in invention in the nineteenth century but also on their positioning, their interactions and the perception that their contemporaries have of their approaches.
- 14 Patents numbers: 47940, December 31, 1860; 58984, June 15, 1863; 96095, July 31, 1872; 101014, Nove (...)
3Identifying patentees involves counting patents but analyzing the path of inventions requires studying additional sources, such as reports of official bodies set up by the French government and those of learned societies, which were numerous in the nineteenth century in France. Women used the patent to protect their ideas but also communicated with academies and learned societies in order to seek expertise and to showcase their knowledge and know-how. Another form of publicity used by female patentees was to make their inventions known and recognized. They thus presented their products at industrial and universal exhibitions, juries’ reports and award lists show them at work. Finally, the press, trials and jurisprudence represent complementary sources that are essential to our knowledge of patentees’ approaches and their public recognition. Cross-referencing these sources provides a better understanding of the female patentee’s approach, the life of her patent, its production, and its ups and downs. For example Miss Brossard-Vidal’s ébullioscope (an alcoholmeter), patented six times between 1860 and 1874, received an honorable mention for its construction at the 1855 Universal Exhibition, and was the subject of five laudatory reports from the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale between 1855 and 1886, in which her invention was analyzed. Industrialists carried out experiments using this scientific instrument and the scientists of the learned society asked the inventor to reproduce her own experiments in front of them. This report provides an informed opinion on the ébullioscope but above all it shows that Miss Brossard-Vidal’s brother is considered the inventor while her sister demonstrates the significant improvements made to the instrument’s precision. The cross-referenced sources allow us to follow the inventor over 20 years providing an interesting perspective on the context of the invention and its perception.14
- 15 Number of patents; additions that complete or enrich the patent are counted separately, having a di (...)
4A systematic study of the records of the French patent office, the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI), reveals a list of 5,419 patents filed by women in the nineteenth century (from 1791, the year of the first patent laws, to 1900).15 This figure represents only 1.69% of the total number of patents filed by both men and women over the same period, but it does raise questions: these women were active as patent inventors in a very male-dominated field, at a time when they had limited legal rights and easy access to scientific and technical training (let us remember that the first French woman to graduate from high school was in 1861, and the first women doctors had to overcome many obstacles to obtain their diploma at the end of the century).
5However, even if historians have long agreed that the nineteenth century ended in 1914, a little more than a century of patents makes it possible to survey a broad period, to assess progress, to identify trends and to analyse various parameters.
6The figures for patent applications are taken from the Bulletins officiels de la propriété industrielle (BOPI), which began in 1884 and are kept by the INPI. The INPI does not keep the letters and other documents supporting the applications. The gender and marital status of the applicant are always indicated. The bulletins include the applicant’s name and civil status, the name of the patent, its category (according to a specific classification developed during the nineteenth century), the type of patent (invention, import, improvement), the duration of protection (5 years, 10 years, 15 years) and, if applicable, the name of the agent who assisted the applicant with the application. The database of historical patents developed by the INPI, an essential tool for the exploitation of French patents from the nineteenth century, uses the Bulletins but sometimes adds an address, more rarely the occupation of the applicant, and gives access to all the patent application files in digitised form. This extremely rich database, supplemented by the INPI’s own digitised resources, can be consulted on the spot: it allows the text of the applications to be consulted, the information in the BOPIs to be corrected and additional information to be obtained (for example, professions mentioned in the patent applications but not in the BOPIs). The INPI has compiled the information from these sources into a database that allows for sorting and cross-referencing by year, family status, geography, field, type, and duration of protection. This information also makes it possible to distinguish between women who file alone or with a co-applicant, to identify those who have used the services of a patent agent, and those who file several patents in the same or different fields. The study of patents provides a wealth of information that allows us to link these women to social groups, to determine some of their origins, and to identify their approaches.
7Court cases and jurisprudence, particularly those reported in the Annales de la propriété industrielle, are rich sources for tracking the use and quality of patents. They also give a good indication of how female patent holders are taken into account: tone and judgement do not differ according to gender, and women are treated on an equal footing with men. Lawsuits filed or suffered add to the visibility of female patentees and provide insight into the viability of their patents or their engagement over time.
- 16 16.6 % of patents filed in France were filed by women between 1978 and 2019, according to a study b (...)
8Women have filed far fewer patents than men over the centuries, and today’s figures still reflect a significant gender gap.16 However, they have been part of the system from the beginning. While it is necessary to look at women’s patents for their own sake and not to compare them with men’s output, it is important to place them in their proper context.
9Although the number of women’s patent applications was much lower than that of men, the trend over time was similar: 5,419 women’s patents out of a total of 319,533 patents between 1791 and 1900, excluding additions, i.e. 1.69% of the patents during this period (see Tab. 1 and Fig. 1).
Table 1. – Comparative table of patent registrations by period in the nineteenth century
|
All |
Female |
% of total number patents female |
Male |
% of total number patents male |
1791-1800 |
129 |
1 |
0,02% |
128 |
0,04% |
1801-1810 |
509 |
10 |
0,18% |
499 |
0,16% |
1811-1820 |
888 |
24 |
0,44% |
864 |
0,28% |
1821-1830 |
2230 |
33 |
0,61% |
2197 |
0,70% |
1831-1840 |
5252 |
63 |
1,16% |
5189 |
1,65% |
1841-1850 |
14720 |
271 |
5,00% |
14449 |
4,60% |
1851-1860 |
36998 |
668 |
12,33% |
36330 |
11,57% |
1861-1870 |
43403 |
785 |
14,49% |
42618 |
13,57% |
1871-1880 |
49065 |
827 |
15,26% |
48238 |
15,36% |
1881-1890 |
70108 |
1106 |
20,41% |
69002 |
21,97% |
1891-1900 |
96231 |
1631 |
30,10% |
94600 |
30,12% |
All |
319533 |
5419 |
100,00% |
314114 |
100,00% |
Fig. 1. – Percentage of patent applications by sex between 1791 and 1900
10The increase in the number of patents taken out by men and women is comparable in proportion throughout the period, with French women’s patents bearing the imprint of the social and political context. This first observation is particularly interesting because it immediately assigns to women patentees a role that defies prevailing social norms or discourses, a role that inscribes them in the social body of invention, despite its dominance by men (bodies, discourses, and representations).
- 17 Law of July 5, 1844, art. 16.
11A patentee could subsequently make “alterations, improvements or additions” to his or her patent.17 Amendments shed light on the life of the patent: an amendment filed three, six or nine years after the grant of the patent is evidence that the patent is being exploited (or close to being exploited if the amendment is made within two years of the grant of the patent). They also give some value to the patent: if it is maintained (annual fees paid), enforced (required by law) and improved (amendments), we can infer that it is useful, used and profitable. 16% of patents filed by women were thus modified, with between one and nine additions. The proportions of patents that were subsequently amended were the same for each gender, suggesting similar behaviour in terms of patent use, even though women were less likely to patent their inventions.
12Throughout the century, women were present in all the fields defined by the INPI, which included the sectors usually attributed to them: food, clothing, hygiene, childcare and care of others, and household goods (see Fig. 2). A few patents were granted in gender-neutral or coded male-dominated sectors (steam engine, ceramics, metallurgy, hydraulics, navigation, leather and gunsmithing), but they were few in number (less than 400 patents or 7.4% over the whole century).
Fig. 2. – Number of women’s patents by field of classification and in descending order, 1791-1900
13At first sight, the breakdown by field corresponds to what we know about women’s work in the nineteenth century, but a closer look reveals that women’s patents are few and far between in the most gendered sectors (e.g. corsets, crinolines, baby bottles). They are present in all fields, even those in which there is little or no women’s work, albeit in smaller numbers. This calls into question female applicants’ willingness to conform to contemporary gender norms and reaffirms their role as entrepreneurs.
- 18 Galvez-Behar, 2008.
- 19 Ibid.
- 20 Khan, 2005, p. 146.
- 21 Bères, 1849, p. 172.
14Needles and sewing machines, symbols of feminine tools, were not the subject of many patents. Women did not dominate the sectors that social codes assigned to their gender. Labour statistics show a massive presence of women in the textile sector, from manufacturing to bedroom sewing, but they are essentially workers confined to repetitive tasks or paid on a piecework basis, in a markedly precarious situation and living on wages far below those of men, conditions hardly conducive to inventiveness and patenting. Women patent holders are more likely to be entrepreneurs. They are well represented in all sectors of finished products, daily necessities and consumer goods, in all artefacts and processes closely associated with the innovations of their time, and in sectors also largely occupied by men.18 In all fields, their patents kept pace with the evolution of society, its techniques and practices, but they were more concerned with improvements and minor enhancements of everyday inventions: clothing, household appliances, food, Parisian goods. The very small number of women’s patents and the trivial nature of most of their inventions are certainly responsible for the invisibility of women patent holders. However, comparative analyses show that women are patenting in economically buoyant sectors and that their applications differ little from those of men (except in the case of heavy industry), particularly in the domestic economy19. Zorina Khan takes the example of the corset, the subject of many American male patents, as a financially rewarding object.20 An analyst of the 1849 World’s Fair remarked: “Let us not treat the fan too lightly: it still employs 2 to 3,000 workers and stirs up 5 to 6 million every year”.21 Women were well represented in the patenting of this type of object, particularly in what was known in the nineteenth century as the “Articles de Paris”: they registered 448 patents in this protean field, the production of which was essentially intended for export to all countries and contributed to France’s image and budget.
15Married women largely carried out the individual process of patenting; 79% of them applied alone. Most of the women who applied for a patent were married and filed alone, without their husbands (see Tab. 2). This challenges the common notion that the Civil Code severely limited the autonomy of married women.
Table 2. – Number of patent applications by marital status and whether filing alone 1791-1900
|
All |
Alone |
Percentage alone |
co-applicant |
percentage co-appl. |
Married |
2521 |
2026 |
80,4 |
495 |
19,6 |
Single |
1565 |
1168 |
74,6 |
397 |
25,4 |
Widow |
1397 |
1102 |
78,9 |
295 |
21,1 |
All |
5483 |
4296 |
|
1187 |
|
The total is higher than the number of patents, because the number of women applicants is counted here, including when there are several applicants for the same patent.
- 22 Presence of agents in women’s patents: between 1826 and 1900.
16The table underlines the clear predominance of individual applications. Applying for a patent is like concluding a contract between the state and the inventor, but for women it is mainly an individual act, even though the Civil Code does not give married women the right to conclude a contract. The relative legal freedom afforded by widowhood does not lead to an increase in the number of patents. Continuity in the management and development of a workshop or factory is not synonymous with increased inventive development. One could apply for a patent on one’s own or one could rely on the services of a professional. 60% of female patent holders used an agent, despite the cost.22 The agent can be an industrial property professional, a patent agent (most of whom are civil engineers), a lawyer or a notary. As Gabriel Galvez-Behar has shown, patent agents played an essential role: they contributed to the dissemination of information through their journals, they knew how to find information on previous similar inventions (patents had to be published, but there was a considerable delay between the granting of patents and their publication), and they knew how to translate the invention or improvement into a technical file with drawings and plans. These women were willing to incur the additional cost of an agent. This reflects their confidence in the process or product they were patenting and their expectations of the results.
17Records of payments of annual fees (for 5, 10 or 15 years, depending on the duration of the patent), assignments and licenses, as well as minutes of infringement proceedings, shed light on the subsequent actions of women patent holders: filing a patent means exploiting it and defending it, all actions in which they have engaged despite obstacles. Multiple filings by the same woman may confirm that her patents are profitable, as the process is repeated despite its cost. 61% of patents filed are single applications. 705 women filed more than once (between 2 and 20 applications). Most of the women who filed two patents did so within one year. But three, four, seven, ten or more years can separate two patents filed by the same person. We can infer from this recurrence in the process of patenting not only professional stability and progression, but also the success of the first patent that led to the filing of the second, indicating a greater level of certainty derived from experience. For example, Mrs Denise Ralu, born in Cornillac, originally from Martinique but living in Paris, applied for 20 patents between 1881 and 1885, demonstrating intense activity in a short period of time. Some patents were filed on the same day. The most important items are beverages (liqueurs, orange wine, beer, various alcohols, coffee), as well as methods of preserving and transporting fruit. There are three patents related to commercial activities linked to the production of beverages: improved postcards, envelopes and advertising material.
18The use of an agent, the payment of annuities, the taking out of supplements, the implementation of assignments and licenses are all evidence of women’s use of the patent system: women make use of all existing modalities. The variety of ways in which some women use the industrial property system demonstrate the long-term nature of inventions: patenting is not an anecdote, but a long-term strategy.
19Even after the reduction of fees in 1844, the cost of filing and maintaining a patent remained high, including filing fees, annual fees during the protection period, copying costs, and, where applicable, fees to a patent agent. However, if filing was part of a professional activity that could be carried out alone or with others, especially family members, the costs could be justified. Furthermore, women who obtained a patent in their own name may have had access to their own financial resources.
2046% of female applicants were married, 29% single, and 26% widowed (see Tab. 3).
Table 3. – Distribution of female patentees by marital status 1791-1900
|
Number |
Percentage |
Remarks |
Married |
2521 |
46 |
includes 7 incorporated firms |
Single |
1565 |
28,5 |
|
Widow |
1397 |
25,5 |
includes 99 Sociétés veuves |
All |
5483 |
100 |
|
5,483 names of women, single, married or widowed, for 5,419 patents: the difference is due to patents registered in several names.
- 23 Art. 1124 of the 1804 Civil Code.
- 24 Sohn, 1996; Halpérin, 2012 [1996].
- 25 Craig, 2017.
21The Civil Code of 1804 defined women’s rights. Underage women, like underage men, were under the authority of their father or legal guardian. Single and widowed women had the same rights as men, except for civil rights. Married women were subject to the authority of their husbands. They could not contract, nor could they sue or be sued.23 Some married women partially escaped the authority of their husbands. Women who traded or manufactured on their own account were called “marchandes publiques”: married women did not need their husband’s permission for any action related to their business (but he could oppose their going into business). Although widows were involved in the management of shops, workshops and factories before and after the death of their husbands and took full responsibility as entrepreneurs, they were less active in the field of patents, even though their legal status gave them more autonomy than during their marriage. According to the texts, patent law was the same for all: several nineteenth century jurists, most of them specialists in industrial property, suggest that women could register a patent but could not exploit it without their husband’s permission. Filing a patent entails the obligation to implement the described invention within two years on pain of losing ownership: while bachelors and widows can initiate the process, a married woman can only do so if her husband authorises her to do so. However, only a small number of patent applications filed by married women mention “authorised by her husband”. Marital authorisation is therefore tacit. Practice is more flexible than the Civil Code, which is often ignored. The law can be obeyed or circumvented to meet social or family needs and to recognise women’s economic agency.24 Patent figures prove it, and studies on women entrepreneurs have already shown it: married women play a full part in the French economy, not only as workers but also as managers of companies, both large and small.25 Their participation in technical innovation also includes patenting, a key component of industrial and commercial strategy.
- 26 For example, Brunet and Bonnet in Lyon, Farinaux and Surbayroles in Lille.
22The social origins of female patent holders are not easy to determine from patent applications or bulletins. However, titles and occupations can provide some clues. Surnames and maiden names are also valuable indicators which can be used to identify an inventor’s family and from there to deduce their background. The names of the Wendel and Dietrich widows, for example, reflect the continuity of well-known family businesses. Famous names from the Lyon and Lille industrial classes could be identified among the patent holders, underlining the importance of the social and family environment in the act of inventing.26
- 27 Martini, Albert, 2021.
- 28 Patent number 87428, October 30, 1869.
23Only 21% of women’s patents mention a occupation practised by a woman. However, the proportion of women in the working population was 33% in 1866 (census excluding rural and domestic work) and 36% in 1911. Women with a patent would therefore be professionals who did not declare themselves as such, either for legal and financial reasons, or because their occupation was not seen as such: it was part of their family activities, or ‘only’ a source of extra income, as was common in the nineteenth century when considering the financial contribution of women’s work. 30% of the reported occupations were textile-related. Manuela Martini and Anaïs Albert speak of a “massive and essential presence of women and children in all phases of the textile production and distribution process”.27 However, this percentage also represents 70% of non-textile occupations and shows the wide range of occupations occupied by women and generating patents. The occupations mentioned are related to the fields of the patents applied for. In 1869, Mrs. Victorine-Lucie-Marie Bailly-Comte, a watchmaker, registered a 15-year patent for a pendulum system with fixed seconds, adaptable to all types of clocks and pendulums.28 Midwives registered pessaries and perfected feeding bottles and breast-ends.
- 29 February 3, 1843 (no numbers before 1844).
24Milliners took out patents for hats and teachers for teaching methods. In the case of co-applicants, their professions were similar or complementary. For example, a doctor and a corset maker, Mr. Daubian and Miss Lukkow, took out a patent for a hygienic corset.29 Specialists in their fields, they combined their skills for their invention. Applying for a patent is clearly a professional necessity. Three-quarters of the applications filed by a man and a woman in the same profession were by people who did not appear to be related to each other – showing that female inventors do not work exclusively in a family context.
- 30 The records in the INPI’s database of historical patents sometimes do not indicate an occupation fo (...)
25109 different occupations held by women are mentioned in the 1.118 patents with an indication of occupation.30 The graph below shows how they are distributed, distinguishing between those who applied alone and those who had co-applicants (see Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. – Breakdown of occupations reported in patent applications by sex and type of application
- 31 Occupation names in French : fabricante, propriétaire, marchande, négociante, couturière, lingère, (...)
- 32 Patent number 122595, February 13, 1878; June 19, 1823; patent number 188028, January 12, 1888.
26Manufacturer, with or without precision, is the most common occupation, far ahead of the others. 17.10% of the patents relating to the profession of manufacturer do not give any details, but when the speciality is indicated, it reveals a wide variety: 119 manufacturers of lampshades, hosiery, weapons, rubber, shoe polish, scarves, gloves, petticoats, ironmongery,... Women are also owners, merchants and traders, all generally middle-class activities, but which require interaction with other people: customers, suppliers. 258 occupations belonged to the textile sector (fabric work, clothing, textile industry), the most common being manufacturers, seamstresses and lingerie makers. Outside this sector, we find nursing and teaching professions, as well as ironmongers, landladies, merchants, declared inventors, florists, artists and mechanics.31 In 1878, Mrs. Cuissez, a teacher of artificial flowers, registered a patent for a fleur artistique à médaillon (an artistic flower with a medallion); in 1823, Mrs. Benoist, an inventor named in the patent, registered a patent for a Siège inodore destiné à l’assainissement des lieux d’aisance (Odourless seat for the disinfection of washrooms); in 1888, the widow Moro, a mechanic, registered a patent for a Machine à couper les nouilles et les vermicelles (Machine for cutting pasta and vermicelli).32 These figures show that female patent holders were active and worked in buoyant sectors, that they knew how to surround themselves with other active individuals and were probably part of a network of partners.
- 33 Martini, Albert, 2021.
- 34 Craig, 2017.
27The majority of occupations are in crafts and trades, highlighting the presence of women at various levels of the working world, from execution to decision-making. While women have always participated in a “hidden economy” by accompanying their husbands in their trades or by allowing the family to devote itself to the trade while they managed the household, patents give greater visibility to this economic participation.33 They signal a more direct, more visible involvement in the economy, as several studies have already shown.34
- 35 Ibid.; Khan, 2015; Daumas, 2003; Lemercier, 2021; Colli, Bertrams, Kusman, 2016.
28Patenting is a form of economic initiative that involves risks. However, women have applied for patents alone or with co-applicants, married, single or widowed, some of them family members. This is not the case for the majority of professional associations, but it is a recurring modus operandi in women’s patenting. This is not surprising as family firms played an important role in the industrialisation of France (see Fig. 4).35
Fig. 4. – Co-filed patents: proven family links (in number of patents)
- 36 Patent number 49499, April 18, 1861, “Perfectionnements apportés au système de chemin de fer pour l (...)
- 37 Patents numbers 26740, 35006, 52397.
29Women working in family businesses can help their husbands and take their place when needed, especially after their death, and have therefore played a crucial role in economic strategies. They are a link in the transmission of knowledge between generations (mothers to sons, but also mothers to daughters) and even within them (for example, from sister to sister). Genealogies of inventions emerge from the study of related co-applicants. Children improved on their parents’ patents and also obtained patents in different fields, as familiarity with the system helped them to navigate it. In the Jouffroy d’Abbans family, the daughters continued their father’s technical work, and a granddaughter honoured his memory by also developing technical knowledge and obtaining a patent, albeit in a completely different field.36 Mrs. Vernède de Corneillan, Philippe de Girard’s niece and heiress, filed three patents in 1856, 1858 and 1861.37 On other occasions, the patent was the story of a married couple, either because they applied for it together or because the wife continued the work after her husband’s death. Life and family stories can thus be gleaned from patent applications. However, only 36% of the co-applicants are close relatives: 64% are not, indicating that women’s activities were not limited to the family circle. They operated on a wider scale and recruited the skills or financial support needed for their project outside the family; they may also have provided financial support to another patentee’s project.
30A study of their marital status and occupations shows that female patentees came from a wide range of backgrounds, from the petty bourgeoisie to the wealthy aristocracy, from industrial backgrounds to international trade, but that some were illiterate, worked as teachers, mechanics, doctors, or lived off their earnings. Despite the fragmentary information gleaned from their accounts, they seem to represent a large cross-section of nineteenth-century society, with the notable exception of agriculture and domestic service, sectors in which women were very present.
- 38 Biais, 1900; Khan, Sokoloff, 2006; Galvez-Behar, 2008.
- 39 Even patents taken without professional agents.
31The technical expertise of women patent holders raises a number of questions: how could poorly educated women become part of a patent system run by technicians, engineers and lawyers? The laws on girls’ education passed in the second half of the nineteenth century certainly brought some progress, but it was small and did not address science and technology. Without a technical education, how can one have confidence in the value of one’s invention, know how to write a clear and unambiguous description of the invention, know how to make a technical drawing (although inventors could use the services of a professional draughtsman if necessary)? As several authors have already pointed out, education has never been a necessary condition for invention; experience, practice and the environment can make up for it.38 Some authors link the increasing number of patents filed by women to their access to education, while others stress that their know-how, their “savoir-créer”, comes from practice. Some patent applications show technical acculturation, others a mastery of the subject matter, but all are precise and documented.39
- 40 October 28, 1814, “Chaufferettes dont la chaleur est entretenue par une petite lampe, appelées augu (...)
- 41 Patent number 265625, April 8, 1897, “Nouveau collier (harnachement de cheval) dit : collier extens (...)
- 42 June 15, 1842, “fabrication d’une eau dépurative”.
32For example, Mrs Chambon de Montaux, who improved radiators, began her patent application with a description and analysis of the various radiators on the market and ended with a presentation of her invention, which remedied the shortcomings of the previous ones. The analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the products leads to an improvement: the approach and description are rational and the application is supported by logical reasoning.40 Mrs Hienly wrote four pages to describe her invention (a horse collar), showing that she had studied the subject and knew it well.41 On the other hand, a dossier submitted by Mr. Granvoinet and Mrs Félicité Tracet on 30 September 1842 for the manufacture of an eau dépurative states that “Granvoinet in Lyon is the only signatory of the application, Madame Tracet, inventor, does not know how to sign”.42 An illiterate, Mrs Tracet’s knowledge came more from experience and perhaps experimentation than from study, and her partner signed under both names. The role played by the social environment, and in particular the family environment, in women’s inventions can be seen in the applications. Education is not necessary to understand and innovate in everyday practice, to combine and improve knowledge and understanding from different sources. Formalising a technical intuition, moving on to prototyping and testing requires more formal knowledge, but patent agents could help women (and men) with this process. They could also provide the necessary information on the novelty of the idea through their knowledge of the technical and professional literature, thus helping to secure a patent. And not all inventions require rigorous formalisation: they require a business model, which women are perfectly capable of producing.
- 43 Cnam. Archives historiques, V 112. Exposition nationale. 1758; 1801; 1802; 1806; 1819.
33Although few in number, French women patentees knew how to take advantage of the various measures put in place by government bodies, and find ways to make their processes, improvements and inventions known or recognized. Through archives, reports from academies and learned societies, the specialized press, we can see that some of these women presented their invention and persisted in their reward applications, like Mrs Pallouis who never ceased to seek recognition for her dyeing method.43 Mrs Pallouis, like many of these women, also took advantage of industrial and local exhibitions to promote her process and seek awards, just as these women took part in competitions organized by the academies or the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale. The activity they displayed made them visible, and even more so when they took part in French and then international exhibitions.
34In order to obtain an authoritative opinion, women patent holders sought the expertise of the scientific bodies of their time, usually after filing their patent application. We have chosen to follow those who turned to the Académie des sciences and the Académie de médecine and to the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale. The opinions expressed by these bodies, as well as by the Bureau and then the Comité consultatif des arts et manufactures, were similar in substance to those given to male inventions, and gave patents a reality, visibility and consistency that patents alone would have had difficulty providing. They also allow us to discover other women who were not patent holders but active in the field of invention. Nevertheless, women were few and far between in the records of these institutions: 12 in the reports of the Académie de médecine, 60 in those of the Académie des sciences and 74 in the Bulletins de la Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale. These very low figures are symptomatic of the almost total absence of women in the official records of science and technology, even if some were appointed as correspondents to one or other of the academies. In 1824, five of the 850 members of the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale were women. What is more, while the reports, especially the bulletins of the Société d’encouragement, were often full of praise, they often denied women’s inventiveness: widows or sisters were recognised as continuing or even enriching the work of their husband or brother, but the latter was explicitly identified as the “real” inventor, even though the patent application and the text of the report credited women with improvements or refinements, in short, inventions.
- 44 Patent number 2410, November 5, 1845, “Genre de pessaire à brisures et à charnières”.
- 45 Report by M. Capuron, July 17, 1849, Bulletin de l’Académie de médecine, 1849, p. 976.
35The purpose of studying these sources is to find traces of female agency in the nineteenth century: women sought information and advice from experts in their field and defended their inventions. The widow Coquillard, a midwife in Belleville, was mentioned 16 times in the bulletins of the Académie de médecine between 1846 and 1880. She submitted eight objects (pessaries, belts, injection instruments) and four formulas (ointments, uses of ergot rye, medicines) to the Académie, in addition to notes on medical cases. Only one of these objects (a pessary) was the subject of a patent application filed in 1845.44 The Académies’ reports are hardly praiseworthy, but the midwife seems to have been well known, as one of the reports mentions that she “[...] lacks neither instruction nor practice”.45 This is an isolated case, but it is indicative of a certain communication between circles that are apparently very far apart.
- 46 Patent: June 30, 1824, “Biberon propre à l’allaitement artificiel des enfans”; Cnam. Archives histo (...)
36The registration of a patent does not necessarily mean that it has entered the operational phase. Competition, counterfeiting and lawsuits, as well as publicity (press, exhibitions, advertising), make the transition from patent to material design clearer. When the Breton midwife’s baby bottles are the subject of a lawsuit, sold in a warehouse, exhibited and awarded prizes, we know that the invention has become a reality and is being tested on the market.46
37The general press was also a means of finding out about the “passage à l’acte” of women patent holders through advertisements, but the specialised press, particularly scientific and technical journals and inventors’ magazines, quoted very few women. Between 1851 and 1870, Le Génie industriel, Revue des inventions françaises et étrangères, published by the Armengaud brothers, consulting engineers and representatives of numerous patentees, cited only six patents taken out by women. During the same period, 559 patents were filed by women. The fields covered by the patents cited in the magazine are varied: a foot warmer, an economical and hygienic method of making bread, a candlestick, a hydraulic press, a metal stamping apparatus, and a water circulation heating apparatus. The magazine describes three of these patents without comment, but the patents for the economical bread-making process, the hydraulic press, and the heating device elicit positive opinions about the process’s interest, indicating a form of recognition. However, the two patents that the Armengaud brothers accompanied with their expertise as agents during the same period do not appear in their magazine; perhaps they did not want to confuse technical review with advertising.
38Industrial and Universal Exhibitions offer a different perspective on the public presence of women inventors, although only a few female patentees are mentioned in the jury reports. Between 1798 and 1900, 1,035 women received a prize, but only 18% of them were patent holders at the 18 exhibitions studied. This small corpus allows us to gain a better understanding of their activities through the sometimes detailed jury reports that reveal a patent’s success.
39Women’s presence at exhibitions was due to their participation in economic life: as artisans, entrepreneurs, merchants and inventors. The fact that they were chosen to represent their country and to exhibit is proof of the quality of their products, which competed with others from France and the rest of the world. Their regular participation in exhibitions (12 patent holders have won several prizes with two, three or even four participations) also demonstrates their persistence in their field of activity and its development, as well as their quest for national and international recognition, perhaps in order to develop a brand or a product.
- 47 But it should be pointed out that women receive half as many awards as men, and in lower categories
40The selection process introduced by the exhibition juries was a guarantee of quality, and the newspapers were eager to report on the exhibitions: the names of the exhibitors, when mentioned in the press, received publicity that may have helped them to commercialise their inventions. But the purpose of exhibitions was to promote existing products and processes: although prototypes were allowed, the emphasis was on the finished product. Women, like patent applicants, were most active in the textile sector, exhibiting consumer goods such as corsets, fans, fabrics and embroidery with a potential export market. The degree of perfection of the work, the cost of luxury, then came into play when prizes were awarded. The exhibitor who emerges from the jury’s reports is an autonomous, productive, recognised, valued and praised woman.47
41Unlike patent files, exhibitions were a public and competitive space. Women’s interactions with the Académie des sciences and the Académie de médecine, as well as with the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, testify to their willingness to engage in dialogue. They were looking for expertise, reward, and recognition. Like all inventors, they were not isolated individuals but were part of professional, scientific, technical and institutional networks. However, the many social networks of invention in the nineteenth century were largely inaccessible to women: whether professional (engineers, scientists) or amateur (inventors’ associations), journalists were overwhelmingly male and more interested in male inventors. This is why it is particularly interesting to find small but constant traces of these women in the publications of academies, learned societies, and in the reports of the great exhibitions of the century that were supposed to showcase them. These traces bear witness to a less rigid society, but also to the ability of women to operate in an environment not designed for them.
- 48 Patent number 209091, October 24, 1890, “Système de pompes à soufflets hydrauliques”.
42It is clear from the files examined that women also knew how to account for their inventions, whether or not they used the services of a patent agent. The text and technical drawings used in patent applications are similar for men and women. The same vocabulary, the same standards were used to describe the invention. The similarities are uncanny: women inventors had no distinctive voice, they fit into the codified standard of patent rules. The personal pronoun “I” is used without hesitation. The widow Louise Motte filed four patents for hydraulic devices in which she provides detailed explanations using personal pronouns and possessives: “my previous system”, “my pump system is characterised by...”: no different from a man’s patent application.48
43But in discourses on invention, on patents, on patents filed by women, only the male voice is heard, and this leads to an underestimation of female inventiveness. Women are acting, but they have not spoken about it. Perhaps that is why they seem to be absent from the field of invention: not because they do not exist, but because those who talk about women deny the possibility of their existence. In this case, it is difficult to imagine the emergence of a female inventor who is inconceivable from the outset. Just as the figure of the author is a construction, “[...] a character in which the ideologies and fantasies of the nineteenth century that invented her are invested”, the female inventor is a social construction that has no official historical reality.49 Only patents, in their physical reality of archives and concrete traces, allow us to see women and invention at work. We have to look for female inventors in the everyday life of trades and family businesses and accept that there are no great figures, heroines or even inventors as a group. There is no such thing as a typical inventor: the invention is the result of a need to which a solution is found and which is protected in order to ensure the income and continuity of the business.
- 50 Khan, 2005, p. 146.
- 51 Carnino, Millet, 2016, p. 448.
44The difference between male and female patent holders lies in the perceived quality of the invention, depending on whether it comes from a woman or a man. The social and economic value of women’s patents is both underestimated and misunderstood: there are few studies on the subject, and the words of the nineteenth century do not highlight it. And yet, as Zorina Khan points out, the so-called “feminine” sectors are dominated by men because they make money.50 The low percentage of women who are known undoubtedly explains in part their obscurity in these fields, but there is also a real denial of their contributions, which are considered insignificant. As Guillaume Carnino and Audrey Millet put it, “to take away the economic and symbolic value of women’s techniques is to minimise their social importance.51 In fact, the value attributed to patents is also cultural: domestic inventions receive far less public recognition than those linked to industry.
45The thesis behind this article was to shed light on the strategies of female patent holders in the nineteenth century, and to understand their situation as women who invented and exploited inventions under difficult legal and social conditions.
- 52 Hilaire-Pérez, 2000; MacLeod, 2007; Galvez-Behar, 2008.
46But this group of women inventors was not homogeneous: the identity of women patent holders was plural, reflecting a diversity of social conditions. Moreover, women patent holders did not identify themselves as a distinct group, nor did they claim a specific gender identity or label. Thus, the female inventor does not exist as a figure distinct from the male inventor. Nor is there such a thing as a typical inventor: it’s a constructed image, that of the hero, as Liliane Hilaire-Pérez has shown for the eighteenth century, Christine McLeod and Gabriel Galvez-Behar for the nineteenth century.52 The glorification of the inventor coexists with the reality of the man of networks, communicating with scientific and technical circles. Neither figure, the lone genius or the man of networks, bears any resemblance to the image of women in the nineteenth century or to the reality of their position in society, whatever their status. Both women and men have invented and patented as part of their economic activities. The difference between the sexes lies in the numbers: there are very few women in the world of technology, invention and patents, even in the periods before the nineteenth century. The characteristics of the patents taken out by women allow us to discover activities, modes of action and positions that are hardly expected of “the” woman of the Nineteenth century as she appears in contemporary writings. Their role in invention is real and constant, and women inventors were not exceptions to a general rule. Considering that women were as much a part of history as men, albeit masked by it, the identification of their role in patenting testifies to their involvement in the organisation of society, their networks (professional, family, social) and the fact that their patents were responses to needs that they had identified and analysed. The study of their backgrounds sheds light on their agency in the field of innovation and deepens our knowledge of their social role.