Prizes and Patents: Female Innovation in Colonial Australia

Grant Fleming, Frank Liu, David Merrett and Simon Ville

No 7, CEH Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: We analyse prize winners at international exhibitions held in Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century as a means of estimating the significance of female inventors. It provides an alternative measure from the more common focus on patents. While both methodologies – patents and exhibitions – have shortcomings, exhibitions appear to be more inclusive of sectors in which female inventiveness was concentrated including apparel, textiles and the creative arts. This is confirmed by the larger share of women inventors as exhibition prize-winners compared with patentees. Female patentees and prize-winners possessed similar characteristics – many were married, lived locally, and were occasional and individualist in their creative habits.

Keywords: Female inventors; Australia; international exhibitions; prize winners; creative industries; patenting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:hpaper:133

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