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Patent holder profile

Mary Jones De Leon and the Cooking Apparatus Patent

De Leon extends the Black women inventors and domestic technology lanes through an 1873 Baltimore cooking-apparatus patent.

Why this belongs on CultureUp

De Leon is a public-record memory story.

De Leon belongs here because cooking technology and household labor are part of public technical memory, not background domestic scenery.

Unique holder rank 12 / grant rank 14Status: source_reviewedSource grade: A-

Patent: 140253: Improvement in Cooking Apparatus
Issue date: 1873-06-24
Place: Baltimore, Maryland
Record strength: A- patent-record strength with identity and biography caveats.
Identity evidence: Publishable as a patent-record profile; public biography still needs more source support.
Why this record matters: The record keeps domestic work, heat, cooking, and household technical design inside patent memory.

What the public record supports

U.S. Patent No. 140253, issued June 24, 1873.
Patent text ties De Leon to Baltimore, Maryland, and cooking apparatus.

What remains open

Identity and biography need public source expansion.
No first-language should be used from the patent row alone.

Article profile

Read the person, place, invention, and record separately.

CultureUp keeps each layer visible so a patent record does not get stretched into claims the source trail cannot support.

The patent record

The patent text identifies Mary Jones De Leon of Baltimore, Maryland, and an improvement in cooking apparatus issued June 24, 1873.

The person in the record

The public profile is patent-first and does not claim a complete biography.

Place attached to the claim

Baltimore anchors the patent row and should guide future local record work.

The invention

The invention belongs to cooking apparatus and domestic technology.

Business, labor, and use

The patent does not prove household use, manufacturing, market success, or all labor conditions around cooking work.

What the record cannot prove

The patent cannot prove full biography, lineage, private family record, or first-language.

Patent records

Grant trail

Grant rank and unique-holder rank are shown separately so repeat patentees do not distort the chronological sequence.

Grant rank 14Holder rank 12utility patentmedium high

140253: Improvement in Cooking Apparatus

Mary Jones De Leon / 1873-06-24

Patent row supports Black women inventors and domestic technology; identity and biography remain caveated.

Residence: Baltimore, Maryland
Category: domestic / cooking technology
Source status: medium high
Primary sources: 2 mapped

Source trail

Claims stay tied to source limits.

Patent record

Patent text, case-file context, or patent-image trails that can support inventor, title, number, date, place, and claim language.

patent text mirrorpatent text with identity-source caveat

US140253A - Improvement in Cooking Apparatus

Google Patents / 1873 patent record

Supports: Shows Mary Jones De Leon of Baltimore, Maryland, connected to an improvement in cooking apparatus issued June 24, 1873.
Limit: The patent verifies invention and residence. Keep identity and biography caveated unless supported by public Baker/Murray, city directory, Black press, census, or scholarship sources.
Last checked: 2026-06-09
Source URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US140253A/en

Identity evidence

Institutional profiles, Baker/Murray recovery context, or public source trails that support careful Black patentee language without private proof.

official historical essayrecovery-project context

Found on Baker's list

United States Patent and Trademark Office / 2022

Supports: Connects Henry E. Baker's recovery project, George Washington Murray's Congressional Record list, and the problem that the Patent Office did not and still does not collect demographic data.
Limit: Baker's list is a recovery starting point, not a complete census of Black inventors.
Last checked: 2026-06-08
Source URL: https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/journeys-innovation/historical-stories/found-bakers-list