Historical Documents Online: Search Hints for Selected Topics

Patents / Inventions

Selected Patent Documents
9 patent documents have been digitized, four of which have been displayed as part of NARA's "American Originals" exhibit. The documents include Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin drawing, Whitney's Petition Requesting the Renewal of His Patent on the Cotton Gin, Still Design drawing, Elisha Otis's Elevator drawing, Design Patent for Simon Crow's Pure White Wheat Whiskey, Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone drawing, Thomas Edison's Electric Lamp drawing, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Oath for an "Improvement in Flying Machines," and Joseph F. Glidden's Improvement to Barbed Wire drawing. These materials are held by NARA's Cartographic and Architectural Records (College Park, MD).
Search Hint: To retrieve the 9 digitized documents:
1. Go to http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/.
2. Press the Yellow search button to go to the Archival Descriptions Search screen.
3. To search only for archival descriptions that have digital copies, click the Digital Copies search button at the top of the ARC pages.
4. Enter Patent in the Keywords box.
5. Select the limit results radio button for 100.
6. Press the Go button.
7. When hits are returned for your search, view the full result of your hit by selecting the Title link.
From the Collection:

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ARC Identifier: 305887, Title: "Still Design Patent, 1808"