Industrial societies have made a point of recognizing their inventors.  The widespread practice of awarding patent protection is the most obvious example.  Another is the public celebration of leading figures in science and technology.  In their own ways, each of these exercises has operated to create ‘official’, or at least widely influential, histories of invention and creativity.  In turn, modern historians of technology have engaged critically with the accounts of technological change that previous generations left behind.

This session presents three perspectives on the history of invention and its rewards.  The first paper, by Christine Macleod, considers how public perceptions of inventive activity have shifted over time.  By analysing the changing status of ‘inventors’ and ‘scientists’ in late-nineteenth-century Britain, Macleod draws out the implications of such shifts for the groups involved and for the historical treatment that their members subsequently received.  In the second paper, Christopher Beauchamp discusses the specific issues surrounding patents and the legal system.  If patents are to be understood as sources for the study of invention, he argues, historians must remain acutely aware of the legal institutions that defined and regulated intellectual property.  Finally, Kathryn Steen brings together both the changing politics of invention and the dominant role of governmental institutions.  Her study of a major patent law reform in the United States demonstrates how technical expertise—and the ability of particular actors to wield it—lay at the centre of debates about patent governance.

All three papers bear on the past and present practice of history in this area.  As Steen points out, invention and patents have been central concerns of the SHOT community since its earliest days.  In bringing together these papers, the session suggests ways in which today’s historians can better understand and evaluate the judgements of the past.