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Nancy Graham of Jackson, Ohio, is also interesting because she received two stove patents (one omitted from LWP) in addition to her plaiting machine, and because she seems to have been an entrepreneur and manufacturer as well as an inventor. Born Nancy Jane Dobbs in Ohio, she married Christopher Graham before 1859. Her first two children were born in Indiana in 1859 and 1862. By 1865 she was back in Ohio, where her other six children were born, the last three between 1870 and 1880. As of 1870 Christopher Graham was a tinner. The family seems to have belonged to the Methodist church, as the Jackson-born children were baptized here.
Nancy Graham died of cancer in her early 50s, just a few months after her second patent was granted. She was in Lamar, Missouri, in the last days of her illness; she died and was buried there, late in 1889. At the time of her death, she owned real property in Jackson and made a will to dispose of it and her other assets. Among her bequests is $250 to her eldest child and executor, Pelow Graham, intented, she says “as compensation for his service connected with my business at Jackson, Ohio.” She leaves $50 each to her three middle sons, and “all my real estate, ... particularly my real estate in Jackons, Ohio” equally to her three daughters, her youngest son, and her husband, Christopher’s share to go to these four children at his death, “share and share alike.”
It is interesting to note that Graham makes her eldest son her executor, and leaves her husband only a life interest in a fifth of her real property. This, combined with her patenteed inventions and her entry into the business world, suggests that her husband may have been a poor provider or, at the very least, less ambitious and successful than his wife. An estrangement between Nancy and Christopher could also explain her move to Missouri just before her death. The other obvious explanation would be that her eldest daughter Martha had moved there, and Nancy went to her because she needed care. Interestingly enough, Martha does not seem to have been married by 1889, although she would have been 27 years old.
The nature of Nancy Graham’s business is not yet certain, but it may have been a stove-manufacturing and / or sales entreprise.
Nancy J. Graham was recently honored in her home town of Jackson, Ohio. The Herizon Women’s Collective included her in an exhibit, “Women to Be Proud Of — Historical Portraits of Notable Jackson County Women,” mounted at the City Library (D. Stanley, L-3/21,23,24, 6/11 & 27, 11/29/82; Jackson, Ohio, Birth & Death Records, 1867-1908; Will of Nancy J. Graham, Nov. 21, 1889; 1870 & 1880 censuses, Jackson, Ohio; Herizon, “WOmeb to Be Proud Of...,” November 1982; T. Tucker, L-8/20, 8/25, 9/1, and 9/4/84).
Other laundry aids: Not machines per se, but definitely mechanical and thus pertinent here, are the folding ironing boards, the adjustable pant(aloon) stretchers or shapers, the curtain stretchers, and the reels and pulleys allowing clothing to be hung on a line inside and then conveyed out through an upper-floor window to dry, among other laundry aids that women invented during the 19th century. Following are single examples (all patented, all from LWP) in each group mentioned. — (Source : Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology, by Autumn Stanley). 1993.
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1837 - 1889 (52 years)
. Pelow John GRAHAM, b. Oct 1859, Indiana 
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