On April 26, 1892, Sarah Boone made history as the fourth Black woman in the U.S. to be awarded a patent for her collapsible ironing board invention.
Boone’s accomplishment becomes even more impressive when you consider the fact that “just two decades earlier, she could not read.” As an enslaved woman growing up in the south, it was illegal for Black people to be taught to read. In addition, if this was just thirty years earlier before the Civil War, as a Black person, Boone would not even have been permitted to take credit and claim her own invention.
She reportedly escaped slavery by marrying a free man and Boone and her husband moved up north. In a short period of time, Boone was able to learn how to read and decipher “technical documents and diagrams,” well enough that she was able to write and apply for her own engineering patent.
The Boones lived in a neighborhood close to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and she worked as a dressmaker. At that time, “custom-fitted dresses made for corsets had a tiny waistline and sleeves that were full at the shoulders and tight at the wrists.”
It was difficult to iron these 19th century fashions to eliminate wrinkles on both sides using the preferred method at that time of “ironing on tables or a plank rested across two chairs.”
Prior to Boone’s invention, hundreds of patents for ironing boards had been issued. For instance, in 1858, William Vandenburg and James Murray had “received three patents for an ‘ironing table’ to press sleeves and pants.” Almost a decade later in 1866, Sarah Mort received “a patent for a ‘light and durable’ ironing board for pressing ladies’ dresses, skirts, and bonnets. It could be extended and, when not in use, its press board could be removed to save space.”
But the U.S. Patent Office granted patent #473,653 to Boone for her novel and innovative invention. In fact, many consider it to be “the predecessor to our modern ironing board, containing many similar elements: it narrowed at the top to fit inside clothes; it had padding on the side to prevent unwanted impressions; and it was collapsible to be stored easily.”
According to the New Britain Industrial Museum, Boone’s patent application stated, “My invention relates to an improvement in ironing-boards, the object being to produce a cheap, simple, convenient, and highly effective device, particularly adapted to be used in ironing the sleeves and bodies of ladies garments.
“My improved device is not only adapted for pressing the inside and outside seams-of the sleeves of ladies waists and mens coats, but will be found particularly convenient, also, in pressing curved waist-seams wherever they occur,” the application continued.
Sadly, very little documentation exists today that proves Boone was able to capitalize upon her feat and commercialize her creation. In 1904, Boone died in her home without leaving behind any letters, papers, or pictures.