{"id":1088,"date":"2013-06-29T13:08:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T13:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2016-06-15T13:52:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T13:52:17","slug":"application-for-patent-march-10-1849","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/application-for-patent-march-10-1849\/","title":{"rendered":"Application for Patent (March 10, 1849)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#122<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n
“\u2026To all whom it may concern:\u00a0Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the state of Illinois, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat or other vessel for the purpose of enabling their draught of water to be readily lessened to enable them to pass over bars, or through shallow water, without discharging their cargoes…”<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, March 10, 1849<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lincoln Log, March 10, 1849<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\n\u00a0View in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

“. . .Lincoln’s steamboat invention was utilitarian and not simply an exercise of his intellect or a self-aggrandizing means of fame and fortune (although if his model had been manufactured and he had realized some profit, he surely would not have complained or refused). \u00a0Growing up as a pioneer farmer and boatman, Lincoln knew the necessity for reliable transportation not just for travel but also to take farm products to market, and he hoped his invention would help facilitate river navigation. \u00a0It was the realization of Lincoln’s understanding of the needs of the western American as well as an outgrowth of his long-held political belief in internal improvements. \u00a0Lincoln had championed Henry Clay’s American System since his first term as a state legislator in 1834 and continued it into his presidential terms.”<\/p>\n

\u2014Jason Emerson,\u00a0Lincoln the Inventor\u00a0<\/em>(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), 13<\/a><\/p>\n

“By [November 1860], the outlines of [Lincoln’s] biography had grown familiar. \u00a0But readers were surely surprised when the reigning bible of technology,\u00a0Scientific American\u2014<\/em>otherwise devoting its latest issue to newly invented carriage wheels and gas meters\u2014focused, too, on an eleven-year-old device for buoying vessels over river shoals. \u00a0Neither the blueprint, nor the four-foot wooden model he had first floated in a Springfield trough more than eleven years earlier, had matured to the development phase, and in truth seemed unlikely to work. \u00a0But the editors had learned that it had been invented ‘by no less a personage than the President elect of the United States.’ \u00a0Abraham Lincoln’s 1849 patent (number 6469), though it had failed to attract investors, much less revolutionize river travel as once he had dreamed, now received the full\u00a0Scientific American\u00a0<\/em>treatment, with the would-be inventor’s handmade wooden model exhaustively described and faithfully reproduced in woodcut. \u00a0The journal tactfully sidestepped the scientific merits of Lincoln’s idea, gently conceding that ‘we hope the author of it will have better success in presiding as Chief Magistrate over the people of the entire Union than he has had as an inventor.’ \u00a0But the magazine was clearly impressed, suggesting that Lincoln’s little-known foray into science demonstrated ‘the variety of talents possessed by men’\u2014one man in particular. \u00a0In face, no other president before or since has ever held a federal patent. \u00a0As the magazine pointed out, ‘it is probable that among our readers there are thousands of mechanics who would devise a better apparatus for buoying steamboats over [sand]bars, but how many of them would be able to compete successfully in the race for the Presidency?'”<\/p>\n

\u2014Harold Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham\u00a0<\/em>Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 137<\/a><\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/span><\/p>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n
March 10, 1849<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u2026To all whom it may concern:<\/span><\/div>\n
Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the state of Illinois, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat or other vessel for the purpose of enabling their draught of water to be readily lessened to enable them to pass over bars, or through shallow water, without discharging their cargoes; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings making a part of this specification. Similar letters indicate like parts in all the figures.<\/span><\/div>\n
The buoyant chambers A. A. which I employ, are constructed in such a manner that they can be expanded so as to hold a large volume of air when required for use, and can be contracted, into a very small space and safely secured as soon as their services can be dispensed with\u2026<\/span><\/div>\n
\u2026I wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not intend to limit myself to any particular mechanical arrangement, in combining expansible buoyant chambers with a vessel, but shall vary the same as I may deem expedient, whilst I attain the same end by substantially the same means. What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by letters patent, is the combination of expansible buoyant chambers placed at the sides of a vessel, with the main shaft or shafts C, by means of the sliding spars, or shafts D, which pass down through the buoyant chambers and are made fast to their bottoms, and the series of ropes and pullies, or their equivalents, in such a manner that by turning the main shaft or shafts in one direction, the buoyant chambers will be forced downwards into the water and at the same time expanded and filled with air for buoying up the vessel by the displacement of water; and by turning the shaft in an opposite direction, the buoyant chambers will be contracted into a small space and secured against injury.<\/span><\/div>\n
Witness\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Z. C. ROBBINS\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
A. LINCOLN<\/span><\/div>\n
H. H. SYLVESTER<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #122 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents   Annotated Transcript “\u2026To all whom it may concern:\u00a0Be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, in the county of Sangamon, in the state of Illinois, have invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10855],"tags":[10866,11652,6088,11669,10861],"class_list":["post-1088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-railsplitter","tag-antebellum","tag-inventions","tag-letter","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-public"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4191,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}