Mary Dixon Kies, Female Patent Pioneer
First Woman Patent Holder Died Penniless in Brooklyn
Mar 20, 2009
It was a feminine thing–a process for weaving straw–that made Mary Dixon Kees of South Killingly, CT, the first woman recipient of a U. S. patent. The issue date was May 5, 1809.
Mary was the daughter of Irish-born John Dixon and his third wife, Janet Kennedy. Her father was past 70 when she was born. After her first husband, Isaac Pike, died, Mary wed John Kies.
European Embargoes Help U. S. Hat Industry
The potential of her invention was indirectly related to the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was at war with European nations and sought economic harm to his enemies by blocking trade. President James Madison didn’t want to involve America in the European based wars. He decided American industries should produce European goods no longer making it across the Atlantic.
Straw weaving was an important industry, with a major product being straw hats worn by field workers. In 1798, Betsy Metcalf invented a method of braiding straw and employed several women hat makers. She didn’t patent her method. This was probably because in many states women could not legally own property separate from that of their husbands.
Mary Kies had the nation’s economic needs on her side. Her cost-effective method gave a boost to the embargo-crippled New England hat economy. It is estimated that straw hats produced in 1810 in Massachusetts were valued at roughly half-a-million dollars. (Multiply by eight to get what would be today’s value for the same product.)
First Lady Honors Inventor
Mary’s straw-weaving technique impressed First Lady Dolley Madison, who honored Mary for her contribution to the hat industry.
Mary Kies' invention followed by two years the opening of the first cotton yarn mills in her hometown of Killingly, CT. She was unable to make a commercial success of her patented weaving process even though her son Daniel and many friends put a substantial amount of money at her disposal.
Killingly Community Rallied to Give Kies a Gravemarker
“Records say that Mrs. Kies died a pauper, and for the last 128 years her grave has been marked only by an uninscribed field stone,” reported an article in a 1965 edition of The Windham County Transcript.
The community responded: “When Grange Master Mervin Whipple and members of Killingly Grange No. 112 learned of this, they decided to pay proper respects to the unusual woman by erecting on her grave a suitable headstone. A monument now stands in the Old South Killingly cemetery in the memory of Mrs. Mary Dixon Kies, the first woman in the United States to apply for and receive a patent.” (Windham County Transcript)
After her husband died, Mary moved to Brooklyn to be supported by her son, Daniel. She died there at age 85 in 1837, leaving nothing to show for that ingenuity that made her the female patent pioneer.
Mary’s patent file didn’t survive the 1836 Patent Office fire. By 1840, less than two dozen patents had been issued to women. Most pertained to a woman’s world—inventions related to clothing, tools and cook stoves.
Samples of the straw fabric covered by the patent and woven by Mrs. Kies can still be seen at the Danielson (CT) Public Library. They were donated by Mary’s great-granddaughter, Delia Taylor. Other samples are on display at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, CT
Sources:
Killingly (CT) Historical Society Online Journal (Vol. 7, 2005); Hall of Fame Inventor Profile.
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