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THOMAS

JENNINGS:

“Dry Scouring,”

U.S. Patent No. 3306x
By Maxine Carter-Lome, publisher
Thomas L. Jennings, date unknown

n 1820, Thomas L. Jennings (1791–1856) was a well-known tailor as a U.S. citizen and granting him the legal right to own and profit from
among gentlemen of wealth and taste, with a successful clothing his invention.
Ishop in Lower Manhattan in New York City. He used the
finest cloth and decorative elements to satisfy his client’s desire for qual-
ity and refinement. A QUESTION OF CITIZENSHIP
Although African-American slaves were known to work with their
masters to create trade tools and better methods for getting the job
done, they were not eligible to file for a patent. The exclusion was based
PRESERVING HIS CRAFT
Jennings found himself disappointed in the conventional methods on the legal presumption that “the master is the owner of the fruits of
used to safely clean dirt and grease from his customers’ expensive the labor of the slave both manual and intellectual.” They were also
clothes without soaking the fibers and ruining excluded by a requirement of the 1793
the fabric. He experimented with different Patent Act, which contained a “Patent
solutions and cleaning agents, testing them Oath” that required applicants to swear to
on various fabrics until he found the right be the “original” inventor of the claimed
combination to effectively treat and clean invention and a U.S. citizen.
them. He filed a patent for his process of “dry Enslaved people up until the Thirteenth
scouring” fabric that same year under the and Fourteenth Amendments after the Civil
Patent Act of 1793, and was granted U.S. War were not considered U.S. citizens.
patent 3306x on March 3, 1821. Individual states enacted laws that prevent-
An item in the New York Gazette dated ed enslaved people from owning any kind of
March 13, 1821, announced Jennings’ success property, presumably including patents.
in patenting a method of “Dry Scouring While there were some provisions through
Clothes, and Woolen Fabrics in general, so which a slave could enjoy patent protection,
that they keep their original shape, and have the ability of an enslaved person to seek out,
the polish and appearance of new.” receive, and defend a patent was unlikely.
According to Emily Matchar in a 2019 “It’s likely that some slave owners secret-
Smithsonian magazine article, we may never ly patented their slaves’ inventions,” writes
know exactly what Jennings’ scouring method Brian L. Frye, a professor at the University
involved, although it is widely recognized as of Kentucky’s College of Law, in his article
the precursor to modern-day dry cleaning. Invention of a Slave. “At least two slave own-
ers applied for patents for their slaves’
inventions, but were denied because no one
A PATENT EARNED, BUT LOST could take the patent oath – the enslaved
“[U.S. Patent No. 3306x] is one of the inventor was not eligible to hold a patent,
so-called ‘X-patents,’ a group of 10,000 or so Thomas Jennings’ image is often paired with this dry and the owner was not the inventor … some
patents issued by the U.S. Patent and cleaning machine when trying to find his image. It was black inventors hid their race to avoid dis-
developed thanks to Jennings’ patented scouring cleaning
Trademark Office between its creation in solution and you can see similar machines in use today at crimination, even though the language of
1790 and 1836, when a fire. began in many dry cleaning establishments. patent law was officially color-blind. Others
Washington’s Blodgett’s Hotel, where the used their white partners as proxies. This
patents were being temporarily stored while a new facility was being makes it difficult to know how many African-Americans were actually
built. There was a fire station next door to the facility, but it was involved in early patents.”
winter and the firefighters’ leather hoses had cracked in the cold. Black inventors who were either born free, like Jennings, or other-
Before the fire, patents weren’t numbered, just cataloged by their wise, who had acquired their freedom, also faced challenges—legal and
name and issue date. After the fire, the Patent Office (as it was called financial—in securing a patent based on the citizenship requirement
then) began numbering patents. Any copies of the burned patents and the ambiguous status of free African Americans as U.S. citizens.
that were obtained from the inventors were given a number as well,
ending in ‘X’ to mark them as part of the destroyed batch. As of
2004, about 2,800 of the X-patents have been recovered. Jennings’ THE APPLICATION
is not one of them.” When he applied for his patent in 1820, Jennings was emboldened
This, however, is not the real story behind U.S. Patent No. 3306x. by his status as a free black man born in New York City to a free Black
It’s actually about the patent holder, Thomas Jennings, the first known family. He was also a successful business owner. On the application, he
African American inventor to be issued a U.S. patent, recognizing him checked off the box declaring himself a U.S. citizen.

20 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles