Credit: Courtesy of the Chicago History Museum.
On July 31, 1790, Samuel Hopkins, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received the first patent granted in the new United States, for an improvement "in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process." The patent was signed by President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Only two other patents were granted that year, one for a new candle-making process and the other to Oliver Evans for flour-milling machinery that would revolutionize the American milling industry.
