Women Inventors

Drawing for a Game Board, 01/05/1904 (ARC Identifier: 595519); Series: Patented Case Files, 1836-1956; Records of the Patent and Trademark Office; Record Group 241; National Archives.

Drawing for a Game Board, 01/05/1904, the patent drawing for a game invented by Lizzie J. Magie, is "Today's Document" from the National Archives. A variation of this game would later become the board game "Monopoly."

Related Sources
Early Female Inventor (C-SPAN Video Library) features Margaret Knight and her invention of a paper bag maker, part of the Great American Hall of Wonders exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

B. Zorina Khan's The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2005) includes chapters on "Women Inventors in America" and "Patentees and Married Women's Property Rights."