When was sybilla masters born

The process was used to create many other woven goods as well, such as baskets, matting and furniture coverings. According to Arch Street Meeting House Sybilla is buried in a site that was originally patented to William Penn and was used as a burial ground.

More Genealogy Tools. Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA. Login to find your connection. Categories: Notables. Isabella Sybilla Righton Masters - Isabella Sybilla Sybilla Masters formerly Righton.

Born in Bermuda. However, it proved a huge hit in the colonies, becoming a staple in the south-eastern diet. This product is hugely popular to this day in the United States, known under the name of grits.

Sybilla wanted a patent for her invention so that she would have sole authority to sell the products. But again, she met with another stumbling block — the government did not have a regular governmental process for giving patents.

Not to be beaten, she applied for a patent from King George himself. In an English patent wasissued to Thomas Masters for Sibilla's invention, since, by law, women were unable to receive patents. In Masters, still on her own in England, secured another English patentin her husband's name. Her second invention involved a process by which strawand palmetto leaves were formed and stained for the adornment of women's hats and bonnets. Unfortunately, no diagram or description of the process exists.

Less than a month after the patent was issued, Masters opened a shop in London, the West India Hat and Bonnet, where she sold head pieces and furniturepadding made from her straw and leaf treatment. Masters' business venture wasshort-lived, however, and she was back in Philadelphia by mid She secured the same two patents with the colony of Pennsylvania, once again in her husband's name. It is not known if she pursued her ventures any further afterthis.

While Sibilla Masters is recognized for her inventiveness and attemptsat marketing, the real significance of her work remains her bold venture intoa realm that was generally exclusive of women. She also invented a new fabric worked out of straw and palmetto, ideal for making products like hats and bonnets.

In , she traveled to England to obtain patents for her inventions. While waiting, and since she had been granted a monopoly for the importation of palmetto leaf, she opened a store in London selling hats, bonnets, and chair coverings made from her straw and palmetto fabric.

On 25 November , letters of patent for her corn mill were issued in her husband's name, Patent , a patent for "Cleaning and Curing the Indian Corn Growing in the several Colonies in America. On 18 February , letters of patent for her process of weaving straw and palmetto were issued, Patent , for "Working and Weaving in a New Method, Palmetto Chip and Straw for Hats and Bonnets and other improvements of that Ware.

When she returned to Philadelphia, Thomas Masters petitioned for recognition of "her" British patents, which were then reissued, since the Pennsylvania colony was now approving its own patents.

Sibylla Masters remained the only woman to have patented an invention until , when Hannah Wilkinson Slater became the first woman in the United States to be issued a patent--for a cotton thread to be used in her husband's factories.

Slater, too, seems little recognized.