Novel Inventions: Emerson, Whitman, and the Patent Office Gallery

This essay explores how patent law offered mid-nineteenth century American authors a conceptual framework for considering creative genius in terms of novelty and public disclosure. To receive a patent, inventors needed to share their ideas with the public and prove their novelty within broad historical and geographical contexts. Such principles were on display in the models in the U.S. Patent Office gallery, which materially showcased ideas of public disclosure crucial to the patent process. Linking literary accounts of the gallery’s collection to the legal and administrative functions of patent law, this essay explores how the intellectual and cultural history of patents informs literary discussions of novelty and the nation throughout the mid-nineteenth century. By examining writings by Emerson and Whitman in the context of the history of patents, we can see how the concept of patentable novelty offered an alternative to more individualist notions of originality in nineteenth-century discussions of creative genius and the political forces that shape them.