Invention Stories

Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl wearing Jogbras running

Athletes as User Innovators

Who invents for sports and why? Specifically, what motivates so many athletes to becomes sports inventors? These are some of the central questions the...

Title page of Hopkins’s address to manufacturers

Licensing the First US Patent

On July 31, 1790, the inventor Samuel Hopkins was awarded the first US patent for a new method of making potash and pearl ash. Potash, later termed...

Illustrating "The Amateur Scientist" at Scientific American

Recently, I discovered the work of scientific illustrator Roger Hayward (1899-1979) while looking at the C. L. Stong Papers. I discovered that, in...

Andy Granatelli and his brother Vincent standing behind two race cars

The Supercharged, Super Fast, Novi Engine

If there was ever a sure destiny, a sort of beautiful, inevitable fate at work, it was my love affair with the Novi. —Andy Granatelli, in They Call Me...

Hyperboloid model made of cardboard, wood, thread, wire, and thread spools

From Innovators to Curators, Making Do is Nothing New

Since March 2020, most Smithsonian staff members have been working from home, cut off from the collections many of us find so fascinating. This...

Don Featherstone posing with plastic pink flamingos on a lawn

The Making of the Iconic Plastic Pink Lawn Flamingo

Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown started, one friendly neighbor began posting a series of scavenger hunts on our neighborhood listserv to...

Cartoon-style drawing of a Jeep with legs, arms, eyes, and a mouth

Illustrating Invention

Ukrainian-born artist and author, Boris Artzybasheff (1899–1965), was known primarily for his work as an illustrator, especially for children’s books...

Inventing and Reinventing Stadiums

“A stadium is more akin to a machine than to a classical building or structure.”– Bob Lang, architectStadiums and arenas have been on a significant...

Patent drawings of a pointe shoe from the side and front.

A Better Pointe Shoe Is Sorely Needed

I have a teenaged daughter who lives and breathes ballet, and as she improves I am constantly amazed not only by her growing artistry but her...

Detail of Figure 1, US Patent 1,242,872, showing entrance signage

One-Way Supermarket Aisles

Navigating a supermarket today is strikingly different than only three months ago. Store layouts designed over the past 100 years encouraged shoppers...

At-Home Inventors

Inventors work everywhere, but many get started at home, using things they find around the house to prototype, or model and test, their inventions...

Battling Under the River

Drill, blast, shovel. Drill, blast, shovel. Repeat. This was the rhythm of work that accompanied the construction of the North River Tunnels below the...

A projection of 3 views of a male customer’s reflection in mirrors, from the side, front, and back. He is wearing a tape measure harness that goes around his neck, arm (at the shoulder), chest, waist, and hips.

A Photo-Fitted Suit

In the early 1940s, Henry Booth, a textile jobber and President of Amalgamated Textile Limited, realized that retailers of ready-made suits had to...

Figure 1 from John Lloyd Wright’s US Patent 1,351,086 for “Toy Cabin Construction,” dated August 31, 1920. The pen-and-ink figure shows a log cabin with a door and two windows.

Lincoln Logs Inventor John Lloyd Wright

Years ago while conducting research for the Lemelson Center’s Invention at Play exhibition, I was surprised to learn that Lincoln Logs—one of my...

A black-and-white icon of a Mac Classic computer with a smiling face on the screen.

Susan Kare, Iconic Designer

Graphic designer Susan Kare is the “woman who gave the Macintosh a smile.”1 She is best known for designing the distinctive icons, typefaces, and...

The reverse side of the John Scott medal, inscribed, “THE SCOTT PREMIUM TO THE MOST DESERVING To John McMullin [sic] of Sinking Valley, Huntingdon County Penna. for a Knitting Machine 1835.”

Knitting Stockings by Machine

John McMullen (1791-1870) and Joseph Hollen, Jr. (1798-1874), both of central Pennsylvania, patented a machine for knitting stockings in 1831. This...

Detail of a photo of Elaine Ostroff, on left, with two other women, looking at a model of a play space. The words Play Room are on the door behind Ostroff.

Creating and Shaping Learning Environments

The built environment that surrounds us is a serious matter, especially to Elaine Ostroff (1933–). An educator, advocate, problem solver, and...

The second iteration of the target with a solar panel in place of the photoresistor

Production Model Laser Maze

Throughout my teen years I was a big car nut. I loved sports cars but one thing I loved more was concept cars. The concept cars had a uniqueness that...