Elizabeth Isenberg, who shared the wonderful daguerrotype of Mary Jenks holding an Izannah Walker doll, contacted the National Archives to get a copy of Izannah Walker's Doll Patent in written form. The form online is a typed/printed version. She kindly shared the PDF of the written patent with me so that I could share it with Izannahphiles who read this blog. It is so fun to be able to see this patent and also to compare the handwriting in it to the letter that Izannah wrote to her sister Bridget. Elizabeth said in her email to me, "I do love how Izannah used the word sometimes and I am surprised her patent atty allowed this to be submitted. Patents are suppose to be like a recipe in a cook book. It really reflects on her personality and it must have driven the patent staff crazy to smooth out the inconsistencies."
It looks as if Izannah paid $15, and an additional fee of $20 to file this patent. $35 of 1873 dollars would be worth $673.08 in 2012. That was a large amount of money for a middle-aged female to spend on getting a patent in her own name. Patents were often taken out in the name of a male family member, rather than in the name of the female.
courtesy of National Archives
"Patent Case File 144373; Patented Case Files; Records of the Patent
and Trademark Office, Record Group 241; National Archives at CollegePark, College Park, MD."
I converted some of the PDF images to photo files below. But do view the PDF to see all of the pages of the patent. Thank you so much to Elizabeth for sharing once again!
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