In 1836, a fire in the U.S. Patent Office destroyed most of the extant records, dating from 1790 to 1836, relating to patents, including the models (drawings). Yet patent records are a rich source of primary information on technological change in the early days of American industrialization and, presently, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain more than a barely informative list of patent titles. Dr. MacMurray's project to provide an inventory, index and precis of patents materials during this period opens new doors to scholars wishing to study the economy, technology or material culture of the early decades of our Republic. Specifically, Dr. MacMurray offers to make more accessible to scholars the materials contained in the early U.S. patents by indexing the "restored" (those recorded anew after the fire) patents and tying these and the "unrestored" patents of the same period together with other sources of information, such as patent assignments and litigation records. Such reference works as those forthcoming from this project, which will be compiled with careful attention to detail, are an important contribution to the infrastructure of science and engineering.
