For decades, American inventors have been sending along their patent applications models, gizmos that reveal a secret history of unmet needs and constant innovation. New Yorker: A relic of American invention was recently revived in a former textile mill in Wilmington, Delaware. Henry Clay's Mill, now better known as the Hagley Museum and Library Visitor Center, sits on the banks of Brandywine Creek at the southern end of a large estate once owned by the DuPont family. Just upstream are the oldest of several dynasty mansions in the area, as well as the ruins of the gunpowder factory where they made their wealth. One morning, curator Chris Cascio welcomed me into the factory. The space once occupied by a cotton picker and carding machine now houses interesting exhibits. It unearthed the remains of a much larger, long-lost museum.
Cascio explains that from 1790 to 1880, the U.S. Patent Office first encouraged, then required, inventors to submit a model with each application. These models were thousands of tiny devices, often elaborately crafted, that were then displayed in the model gallery of the Washington, D.C., office. The gallery, also known as the “Temple of Invention,” was a busy landmark. It regularly attracted up to 10,000 visitors a month and was ranked by one newspaper as “the city's largest permanent attraction.” But by the late 19th century, it had effectively closed its doors. Hagley's latest exhibition, Nation of Inventors, is the largest permanent public display of patented models since then.
[…] The US system was also unique in that other countries did not require a model to accompany a patent application. The reason soon became clear. Already in the 1830s, his collection had outgrown the Patent Office's cramped headquarters in the old Blodgett Hotel. A fire in 1836 destroyed at least 7,000 models, but rather than abandon the requirements, the Patent Office doubled down and secured Congressional funding to rebuild the models and create a façade modeled after the Parthenon. laid the foundations for a truly monumental building. . The building now houses the Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery and occupies an entire city block. In engineer Pierre L'Enfant's master plan for the capital, it was intended to be located between the White House on one side and the Capitol on the other, serving as a kind of non-sectarian “Church of the Republic.” was.