Book ID: CBB001252221

Confederate Invention: The Story of the Confederate States Patent Office and Its Inventors (2011)

unapi

Knight, H. Jackson (Author)


Louisiana State University Press


Publication Date: 2011
Physical Details: xii + 400 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

The formation of the Confederate States of America involved more than an attempt to create a new, sovereign nation--it inspired a flurry of creativity and entrepreneurialism in the South that fiercely matched Union ingenuity. H. Jackson Knight's Confederate Invention brings to light the forgotten history of the Confederacy's industrious inventors and its active patent office. Despite the destruction wrought by the Civil War, evidence of Confederate inventions exists in the registry of the Confederate States Patent Office. Hundreds of southerners submitted applications to the agency to secure patents on their intellectual property, which ranged from a "machine for operating submarine batteries," to a "steam plough," to a "combined knapsack and tent," to an "instrument for sighting cannon." The Confederacy's most successful inventors included entrepreneurs, educators, and military men who sought to develop new weapons, weapon improvements, or other inventions that could benefit the Confederate cause as well as their own lives. Each creation belied the conception of a technologically backward South, incapable of matching the creativity and output of northern counterparts. Knight's work provides a groundbreaking study that includes neglected and largely forgotten patents as well as an array of other primary sources. Details on the patent office's origins, inner workings, and demise, and accounts of southern inventors who obtained patents before, during, and after the war reveal a captivating history recovered from obscurity. A novel creation in its own right, Confederate Invention presents the remarkable story behind the South's long-forgotten Civil War inventors and offers a comprehensive account of Confederate patents.

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Reviewed By

Review Wells, Cheryl A. (2013) Review of "Confederate Invention: The Story of the Confederate States Patent Office and Its Inventors". History: Reviews of New Books (pp. 16-17). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001252221/

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Authors & Contributors
Khan, B. Zorina
Kevles, Daniel J.
Con Diaz, Gerardo
Brian Craig Miller
Regele, Lindsay Schakenbach
Cashin, Joan E.
Concepts
Intellectual property
Patents
Technology
Technological innovation
Science and law
Inventors and invention
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
21st century
Places
United States
Southern states (U.S.)
France
Europe
Massachusetts (U.S.)
Institutions
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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