Women inventors in Italy, 1861–1939
研究了1861至1939年间意大利女性在专利活动中的参与情况，发现女性专利数量虽少但持续增长，法西斯时期增速放缓，性别与政治环境共同影响了女性的发明潜力。
This paper studies women’s participation in innovative activities during the deep societal changes of twentieth-century Italy. It does so by tracking female inventors among the 330,000+ patents registered in Italy between 1861 and 1939. The resulting dataset allows us to disaggregate women’s inventive activity across industries, provinces, and social backgrounds. Despite accounting for only 0.7% of total patents, the number of women patenting increased steadily from 1861 to 1939. Until 1920, the growth of female-linked patents was comparable to that of male-only patents, but started to slow down during Fascism. The gap between the quality of inventions registered by women and men was gradually reduced. Women also patented in a wide variety of technological sectors. This suggests that entrepreneurial women were able to innovate, but that systemic barriers, particularly during the Fascist period, limited their inventive potential, suggesting an intersection of gender dynamics and political climate in shaping female inventive activities.