The Frog of History

Threading the Needle: The Mystery of the First American Woman Patent Recipient

Who was the first woman to receive a U.S. patent? It turns out the answer is not as straightforward as you might think. Many assert that the first woman to be granted a patent was Mary Dixon Kies. On May 5th, 1809, she was granted her patent for a method of weaving straw with silk thread. And while she, like so many other women who have gone unrecognized for their contributions, deserves our respect and praise, she might not actually be the first American woman to receive a patent. That honor might belong to another inventor some 16 years earlier. Her name was Hannah Wilkinson Slater. And she seems to have invented a new kind of cotton thread that aided her husband’s business immensely. But cotton, and in particular, how to process cotton into fabric, was the high-stakes, competitive technology of its day. Industrial spies, some even hired by governments, attempted to steal each other’s cotton-processing technology. And Hannah’s story is intertwined, if you’ll pardon the pun, with this international intrigue. And perhaps as early as 1793, she filed for, and possibly received, a patent on her new type of thread. If so, it pushes back the date of the first patent by a woman by some 16 years, and only 3 years after the passage of the first patent act. So hop into the past with the Frog of History and explore the fascinating story of inventor Hannah Wilkinson Slater.

Episode 3: Ben Franklin's Missing Library

Ben Franklin possessed one of the greatest private libraries of the late 18th Century. And soon after he died, most of its books were sold off, scattered like autumn leaves on the cobblestone streets of Philadelphia. The contents of the library remained relatively unknown for more than 100 years. With renewed interest by historians in the twentieth century, the library's contents have been painstakingly pieced back together--at least on paper. But how did it disappear? And how did historians discover the clues that lets us know what was probably in it? And how many more volumes are still out there, waiting to be discovered? That's what we'll cover in this Episode of the Frog of History.

Episode 2: The First African-American Medal of Honor Recipient is Missing

On Christmas day, 1863, a Union ship was attacked by Confederate artillery near Charleston, South Carolina. An hour-long artillery battle ensued. Within the first 15 minutes, three Union sailors were dead. But the crew soon turned the battle in their favor, as individual feats of heroism by sailors turned the tide. One of those sailors was an escaped slave who enlisted immediately after escaping. His name was Robert Blake. Robert was the powderman for one of the cannons. He valiantly moved between the ship's powder magazine and the gun crews, bringing exactly what powder they needed for their particular gun, and in so doing, enabled the  ship to keep up its artillery barrage. He did this while he and the ship were under heavy fire. For his actions that day he received the Medal of Honor--the first African-American recipient of the nation's highest military award. His grave deserves to be honored, but no one knows what happened to him. A true American hero, lost in the fog of history. Also, check out this great article mentioned in the podcast by Professor Joseph Reidy: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/fall/black-sailors-1.html

The Missing Declaration of Indepedence

What happened to the original Declaration of Independence?

Hop into the past with the Frog of History.

Join us as we explore the pond of human experience up close, from a frog’s eye view. Who knows, you may catch the history bug, even if you don’t have a sticky tongue. So hop into the past with the Frog of History.