U.S. Patent No. 1 Answered a Humdrum Need

Samuel Hopkin's patent with the original signatures.  The date and number in the top right of the page were added after the Patent Act of 1836.

On July 31, 1790 President George Washington affixed his signature to a document granting the first United States Patent.  It was the culmination of a process that began when Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor with more than a passing interest in innovation, carefully reviewed the application.  When he concluded that the submission was both original and useful he signed the document and passed it on to Secretary of War Henry Knox who also approved it and then sent it to Attorney General Edmund Randolph.  Only when the last was finished with it did it land on Washington’s desk.

It was a cumbersome procedure entailing most of the Executive Branch of the still new Federal Government.  It was an improvisation by Jefferson who for some reason left out his rival for Washington’s favor, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton despite the New Yorker’s avowed interest in encouraging American industry.  Chances are very good that the snub was not accidental.

President George Washington and his Cabinet--Secretary of War Henry Knox, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.  All but Hamilton were involved in the review of the first patent.

Jefferson had to ad lib a review process because when Congress authorized the government to issue patents it neglected to say how it should be done.  The act simply authorized the government to carry out the powers described in Article 1. Section 8 of the Constitution:

Congress shall have the power...to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

The first person to take advantage of the new law was Samuel Hopkins, a Philadelphia inventor who petitioned for a patent on an improvement “in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.”  As inventions go, it was pretty mundane, but potash, which was derived from the ash residue of vegetable matter, usually wood, and was used in the making of soap and candles.   Both of those necessities had usually been made at home in the Colonial Era.  Hopkins hoped his process would encourage their manufacture in small scale craft shops for local sale.  So, it perfectly fit Jefferson’s key criterion—usefulness.

Samuel Hopkins was granted the first Patent for his new process of making potash. 

Hopkins was so excited about the prospects for his process that the very next year he was also granted the first patent from the Parliament of Lower Canada in 1791, and issued by the Governor General in Council Angus MacDonnel at Quebec City.

The approval process was repeated two more times that year for a new candle-making process and Oliver Evans’s flour-milling machinery.  The following year the trickle of applications became a rushing steam as innovative and ambitious dreamers submitted their ideas for a $4 fee—a cost that although not insignificant, could be raised by most.   Whatever his own interest in examining the models and drawings, the workload was overwhelming the Cabinet and the President’s attention.

Jefferson substantially streamlined the process.  He handed over initial review to a State Department Clerk who would make a recommendation which he would approve and send on to the President for a final signature.  In practice the final two steps began to simply rubber stamp the Clerk’s determination.

This process continued into Jefferson’s own Presidency.   At his urging Congress created Patent Office with its own staff of clerks.  More than 10,000 patents were issued before 1836 when a fire destroyed all of the records.  That fire spurred Congress to enact the Patent Act of 1836 which authorized the hiring of professional patent examiners in addition to the clerks.  It also authorized new patent documents to be issued in all cases where the patent could be confirmed by other records such as copies held by the recipient.  2,845 patents were restored and issued a number beginning with an X.  That included Hopkins’ first patent.  The rest of the missing patents were voided.

A number of well-known personages worked as political appointees in the Patent Office including Civil War nurse Clara Barton.

To date there are more than six million patents that have been issued to Americans and other nationals by the U.S. Patent system.  Since 1975 patents have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a part of the Department of Commerce.

By the way, a copy of Hopkins’ patent with the original signatures still exists and is held by the Chicago Historical Society. 

The Fourth of July Had Competition to be Independence Day

 

A scene that never happened--the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  There was no great signing ceremony on July 4th or any other day.  On August 2, 1776 the Delegates to the Continental Congress who were still in Philadelphia stopped by the Pennsylvania State House to add their signatures before they left town.  Those who were already gone added their signatures when they could--weeks, months, and in one case years later.

Note--Officially, the United States is celebrating it 250th birthday today.  Due to distractions, divergence, and disappointment the celebration is much more muted than the national hoopla fifty years ago for the Bicentennial.  But gloomy or not the commemoration might not be on the right date. 

As we all know today is Independence Day when Americans celebrate the adoption of a resolution by the Continental Congress formally severing ties between the England and her former colonies in 1776. Although we celebrate on July 4th, the date is just one of several that could have been chosen. 

On May 15 Congress adopted a preamble for a resolution offered by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia calling for colonies without a “government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs” to adopt new governments.  The preamble, written by John Adams, said that “it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed.”  Although the four Middle Colonies voted against it, Adams wrote home that he considered this a virtual declaration of independence.  The same day the Virginia Convention adopted a resolution calling for a dissolving all allegiance to the Crown.  

Virtually forgotten in popular accounts, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee offered the underlying resolution for Independence.  The familiar document was an explanation and justification of the act drafted by a special committee.  It was not the legal document accomplishing separation.  Lee's resolution and the votes for and against it were recorded in the official proceedings of Congress.

In keeping with his instructions on June 11 Lee offered a resolution that Congress declare independence, seek foreign alliances, and begin laying the groundwork for a new confederation:

Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

As Lee’s resolution was being debated, Congress authorized a Committee of Five to draw up a document explaining the action, should it be passed.  The committee consisted of Adams; Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, the delegate with the most international renown and prestige; Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, one of the youngest delegates; Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.  

The famous committee charged with drafting a justification for Independence. Left to right:  Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and John Adams.  Jefferson wrote the first draft.  Franklin and Adams were actively involved in editing and fine tuning the document.  Sherman and Livingston are not known to have contributed to the wordage but were important politically to secure support from their states--especially Livingston whose New York delegation was deadlocked on Independence.

The committee delegated to Jefferson the job of writing a first draft.  He did so over several days.  The committee conferred and recommended some changes, which mortified Jefferson, and then he produced a draft incorporating the edits.  It remained, however, mostly Jefferson’s work. 

The language was sent to Congress on June 28.  The document was tabled until action on Lee’s resolution was completed. On July 1, sitting as a Committee of the Whole with each Colony having one vote, the resolution was approved with 9 yeas, two nays (Pennsylvania and South Carolina), and a no vote by New York, whose delegation lacked instructions, and Delaware whose two delegates were split.  

                    Ceasar Rodney rode hell-for-leather from Delaware to cast his deciding vote in that colony's delegation on June 2 passing Lee's resolution.

On July 2 South Carolina reconsidered and switched its vote to yes and the two most ardent opponents of independence in the Pennsylvania delegation, John Dickinson and Robert Morris, bowing to the inevitable, abstained in a caucus of the state’s delegates allowing the delegation to follow Franklin for independence.  Then, dramatically, Caesar Rodney arrived after an epic ride from Delaware to cast a vote breaking the tie in that delegation.  Only New York, then, had not voted for independence.  Adams regarded the July 2 vote as definitively the day of independence.  He wrote home to his wife Abigail:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Congress then took up the wording declaration from the Committee of Five. On July 3 after spirited debate Congress adopted most of Jefferson’s text except for a lengthy passage critical of the slave trade and some other relatively minor matters of language.  He was bitterly disappointed, but the deed was done.  Congress ordered official copies be made for each state and printed copies to be read publicly. These copies were dated July 4.  A calligrapher worked on a very fine original document which most delegates signed on August 2 and to which absent delegates appended their signatures weeks, maybe even months later.  There was no grand signing ceremony as enshrined in myth.  

The iconic document on display at the Library of Congress and reproduced in class rooms across the country is one of about three copies made by a calligrapher.  Like the printed copies it was dated July 4 although there was no action by Congress that day.  The Fourth was meant to be the date that the Declaration was to be read publicly for the first time but the broadsides were not ready from the printer.  The Philadelphia Evening Post ran it on July 6 and it was not until July 8 that Col. John Nixon of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety read it on the steps of the State House.   General George Washington personally read the document to his troops and local citizens in New York City on July 9.

Here are some dates in the associated with marking Independence Day and the Fourth of July:

1776—Philadelphia celebrated with toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, fireworks, and parades after the official reading on July 8.

1777—13 guns were fired once in the morning and once in the evening in Bristol, Rhode Island

1778—George Washington marked the occasion with double rum ration for the troops. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams held a dinner for fellow Americans in Paris.

1779—The Fourth fell on a Sunday. To keep the Sabbath, observances in many places were held July 5.

1781—Massachusetts became the first state legislature to recognize the day as an official occasion.

1791—The first recorded use of the name Independence Day occurred.

1826—Former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died within an hour of each other on the 50th anniversary of the dated copies of the Declaration

1831—Former President James Monroe died on the Fourth.

1870—Congress made the 4th of July an unpaid holiday for Federal employees.

1884—The Statue of Liberty was presented to the American People in Paris.

1941—Congress made Independence Day a paid Federal holiday.

 

A Temple for Mr. Jefferson Was Nearly as Controversial as the Honoree

 

The Jefferson Memorial on Washington's Tidal Basin.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial  on November 15, 1939 it was just plain good politics.  He was planning to run for re-election in November for an unprecedented third term which was sure to elicit howls of outrage by Republicans who could hardly stand to utter his name.  The country’s recovery from the Great Depression had not only slowed but had slid backwards as a new recession hit the already shaky economy—a recession brought on in no small part to his agreement with Congress to belt tightening budget cutting after years of stimulating the economy with free spending.  Even Southern Democrats, who by in large had backed his New Deal programs as long as he left their traditional racial arrangements untouched, were getting restive, especially a few Senators who could see themselves in the White House if FDR would get out of the way.

The new memorial would remind voters that the generally revered Founding Father and author of the Declaration of Independence was also the founder of what evolved into the Democratic Party.  It would celebrate the particular hero of southerners.   And, of course, it would be another of those high profile public works projects that put Americans to work—always the most popular part of the New Deal.

 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt symbolically lays the cornerstone of the Memorial.

But the monument and its honoree both had plenty of critics.  Republican conservatives of that era were to a man—there were hardly any leading women to speak of—Hamiltonians.  They favored sound money, a national bank (the Federal Reserve would do), high tariffs, low internal taxes, and a Federal government vigorous enough to defend not only the shores but the industrial and commercial elite from the democratic rabble.  Only much later when they make a marriage of convenience with Southern Whites resentful of Civil Rights legislation would the GOP adopt states’ rights conservatism which would claim Jefferson as its founder.

FDR and the Democrats preferred to see Jefferson as a champion of the people against oligarchy and privilege.  They cherished the ringing endorsements of liberty in the Declaration, but also his oft stated view that one generation cannot bind future ones.  They believed that whatever his views on the balance of state and Federal power may have been when alive, that his commitment to the wellbeing of the common man and suspicion of the amassing power of corporations, would put him in that day squarely on the side of the New Deal.

None of the political opposition to memorializing Jefferson came then, as it surely would today, because of his ownership of slaves, his racist assumptions of the inferiority of Blacks, his aggressive Indian policy, and his perceived hypocrisy for not extending the blessings of his beloved Liberty to all. 

There was also the customary carping and complaining about every aspect of the Memorial itself from its location to its design.  Traditionalists were shocked that its placement broke from Pierre Charles L’Enfant original and elegant grand design of the city.  Construction also required the destruction and removal of a grove of ancient oaks and several of the Japanese cherry trees that had been a gift of that country in 1928.  Others felt that the location between the main channel of the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin was too remote or that the landfill on which it would be built was too unstable to support the weight.  And just about everybody had a critical opinion of the design.

Despite it all, the project, which began with site preparation a month earlier, was definitely going to be built when the President, who could not stand unassisted, symbolically laid the cornerstone by touching it before workmen set it into place.

It had been a long time coming.

The future site of the memorial was created by landfill from dredging of the Potomac in the late 19th Century.  In 1908 the construction of Tidal Basin Inlet Bridge made the site accessible and it became part of Potomac Park.  Ten years later chlorine dispensers were installed under the bridge to make the brackish water safe to swim in.  Sand was brought in and a public swimming beach opened.  It was operated for Whites only and was popular with local residents in the scorching Washington summer.  But when challenged by local Blacks who claimed that segregation of public facilities was not legal under Federal Law, the beach was permanently closed.  In ’28 those cherry trees were planted along the shoreline.

Meanwhile, after the completion and dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 it was assumed that it would complete the grand plan and would be the last big monument on the National Mall.  But some people thought there should be accommodation made for at least one future memorial reserved perhaps for some future Great Man.  Others supported the erection of a classic Pantheon containing statues of notable and honorable dignitaries—a sort of open air Hall of Fame had the term been in circulation at the time.  The Tidal Basin site was one of the proposed possible locations.

                                            Memorial architect and champion of Neo-Classical design John Russell Pope.  

In 1925 some admirers thought they found just the right man to honor with a grand new memorial—Theodore Roosevelt.  They raised money for a national design completion for the structure.  Leading New York architect John Russell Pope who proposed a colonnaded half-circle next to a circular basin.  He envisioned the Tidal Basin site, so recently vacated by bathers.

Despite hefty Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, funding for the project could not get approved.  Not only did powerful business interests oppose memorializing the Trust Buster, but many conservative Republicans were still bitter at his splitting the party in 1912 costing William Howard Taft re-election.

Plans for any memorial or for other use of the Tidal Basin site languished for years until 1934 when another Roosevelt asked the Commission of Fine Arts to consider adding a memorial to Jefferson to the massive Federal Triangle Project already under construction.  Encompassing several blocks facing Pennsylvania Avenue along its hypotenuse the project featured the construction of several massive buildings in the Neo-Classic style including the National Archives, Internal Revenue Service, and the Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Labor.

Although that location was shot down, Congressman John J. Boylan of New York proposed the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission.  The bill passed later in ’34 and Boylan was appointed the first chairman.  The next year he secured a $3 million appropriation to go ahead with the design and construction.

Eschewing a long and inevitably controversial design competition, the Commission turned to John Russell Pope who had recently completed the designs of two of the most prominent buildings in the Federal Triangle Project—the National Archives and the National Gallery of Art (now the West Wing of the Gallery.)

Pope quickly turned out four distinct plans for four possible locations—the Anacostia River at the end of East Capitol Street, at Lincoln Park, on the south side of the National Mall across from the National Archives, and the Tidal Basin site.  The Tidal Basin won out both because it was the most prominent site and because it was located directly across the Basin from the White House, affording a dramatic view of each building from the other.

Pope returned to the familiar Neo-Classical style.  He drew heavily on his Henry E. Huntington mausoleum on the grounds of The Huntington Library in Los Angeles.  It was to be an open edifice based on the Pantheon and surmounted by a shallow dome.  It was to sit on a broad platform on a rise from the Tidal Basin and to be flanked by two smaller temple-like buildings.

Pope's plans were savaged by modernists who were chaffing at the bit to liberate public architecture from Neo Classicism.  Pope never responded to the complaints, serene in his conviction that the design, which echoed architect Jefferson’s own Monticello home and his design for the Rotunda of the Main Hall of the University of Virginia.  As it turned out it, however, it would be the last major Neo Classic structure built in Washington.

By the time construction began, Popes had died.  His former partners Daniel P. Higgins and Otto R. Eggers completed the project.  At the request of the Commission, they eliminated the side buildings and made other modifications but stayed essentially true to the original designer’s intent.

                                                         The Memorial under construction.

As construction was underway the Commission did undertake competitions for a statue of Jefferson to go under the rotunda dome and for the decorative frieze for the pediment above the entrance overlooking the Basin.  Rudolph Evans won the commission for a standing bronze statue of Jefferson and Adolph Weinman, noted for his architectural ornamentation did the frieze.

The 1943 dedication competed with war news.

The building was finally completed and dedicated by FDR on April 13, 1943, Jefferson’s 200th birthday.  Because of World War II metal shortages, Evans’ statue could not be cast.  In its place stood a plaster model painted to look bronze.  It was not until well after the War in 1947 that a bronze could be cast and put into place.

Along the walls of the rotunda were large plaques containing quotations from Jefferson, including long excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and from the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom as well as snippets from his only book Notes on Virginia and from several letters.  In a frieze ringing the rotunda under the dome was carved one of Jefferson’s most famous epigrams, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

Naturally the selected words caused an uproar.  Historians noted that the word inalienable rather than unalienable had been used in the opening words of the Declaration—a common error—and that some of the final words were not from Jefferson’s pen but additions from other members of the drafting committee. It also eliminated the right of revolution passage that was central to Jefferson’s justification for Independence.

Conservatives charged that other quotes were cherry picked to seem to endorse the New Deal and its priorities such as a passage on the necessity of an educated electorate which they charge was intended to fool people into believing that Jefferson would support universal public education.  Of course Democrats countered that is exactly what he had in mind.

On the subject of Blacks and slavery, always tricky with Jefferson, the Commission truncated on crucial sentence which began “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free” but omitted the second half, “Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.”

                                      Rudolph Evan's standing bronze is surrounding by Jefferson's words on the gleaming walls.

Today the Monument is maintained by the National Park Service and is open 24 hours a day.  Because of its location far enough away from other attractions to require a long hike around the Tidal Basin, driving, or tour bus—it is not served by the Metro—it is not visited as much as other leading attractions.  Still more than 2 million people visit it each year.  

Controversy over the design has faded among all but the bitterest International Modernists.  In fact, in 2007 the Memorial was ranked fourth on a List of Americas Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

The damaged dome of the Monument was cloaked in scaffolding during the major restoration begun in 2019.

In 2019 a major restoration project got underway to address severe deterioration of the structure including dealing with a dark biofilm that had spread over the surface of the dome and preservation of the marble itself which had become pitted by pollution and acid rain.  Insect and arachnid infestations needed to be eradicated.  Decorative stonework which was falling needed to be shorn up.  It was an $8.5 million dollar, multi-year project.  

The Jefferson Memorial can be seen from the White House across the South Lawn, Ellipse, and Tidal Basin.

In my opinion whatever it and its subject’s flaws the Memorial is a stunningly beautiful building.  It is best seen as dusk descends.  Jefferson seems to peer out across the Tidal Basin to the shining, illuminated White House across the water.  Similarly seen from the White House in the same gloaming, the Memorial seems to glow.  Gives me chills.