American History and the Gallery of Icons

The Gallery of Icons^® invites visitors to the National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Museum to explore the rich history of American ingenuity.

This one-of-a-kind exhibit is made up of hundreds of hexagon-shaped glass icons, one for each of our Inductees — the visionaries who have patented the most impactful and influential inventions of our time. Arranged in chronological order by patent number, the Gallery of Icons tells the ongoing story of American innovation, inspiring visitors of all ages to learn more about the Inductees who shaped each period in our shared history.

Patents 1 to 1,000,000 (1791-1911)

In its first century, the United States was an agricultural nation, and American inventors often designed tools for farming. The inventive environment shifted in the mid-1800s, as public education improved, the United States Patent Office grew and people sought better, faster and more affordable ways to bring goods to market, ushering in a new industrial age.

Many significant inventors and inventions shaped this time period, including Thomas Edison’s electric lamp, Helen Blanchard’s zig-zag sewing machine, George Washington Murray’s agricultural machinery innovations, and Wilbur and Orville Wright’s invention of the airplane.

Patents 1,000,001 to 2,000,000 (1911-1935)

During an era marked by significant economic and social shifts, from the stock market crash to the expansion of voting rights, many inventors made advances that are still central to our everyday lives.

These include Mary Engle Pennington’s food safety innovations and Clarence Birdseye’s frozen foods;  Philo Farnsworth’s television,  Marjorie Stewart Joyner’s contributions to the beauty industry and David Crosthwait’s improvements in heating, ventilation and air conditioning technologies; Garrett Morgan’s invention of the three-way traffic signal and Henry Ford’s advancements that revolutionized the automotive industry.

Patents 2,000,001 to 3,000,000 (1936-1960)

As the nation found its way through the Great Depression and World War II, hope for the future was found in the growth of government-supported research and development.

Significant inventions during this period include Wallace Carothers’ nylon; Mária Telkes’ solar thermal storage systems; Andrew Moyer’s methods for the industrial production of penicillin; Gertrude Belle Elion’s anti-leukemia drugs; Charles Richard Drew’s invention of blood plasma preservation methods; and John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley’s invention of the transistor.

Patents 3,000,001 to 4,000,000 (1961-1976)

Along with major social shifts, in the ’60s and ’70s the country saw progress in medical technologies, safety, electronics and communications.

Some of the recognizable inventions from this period include Wilson Greatbatch’s implantable pacemaker, Paul Terasaki’s tissue typing for organ transplants, Otto Wichterle’s soft contact lenses, Stephanie Kwolek’s Kevlar^® fiber, James West and Gerhard Sessler’s electret microphone, and Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor’s invention of the microprocessor.

Patents 4,000,001 to 5,000,000 (1977-1990)

This era was largely defined by pivotal advances in fields including personal technology, security and healthcare. Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer; Steve Sasson invented the digital camera; and Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman invented RSA cryptography, the world’s most widely used public-key cryptography method for securing communication on the internet. Patricia Bath invented laserphaco cataract surgery and introduced the discipline of community ophthalmology; Angela Hartley Brodie developed aromatase inhibitors, which are among the leading therapies against breast cancer; and Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier identified Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) as the cause of AIDS.

Patents 5,000,001 to 6,000,000 (1991-1999)

Many inventions in this period were influenced by the growth and widespread use of the internet. Information became much easier to access as innovations allowed for advancements in software development, communication and more.

A few of the groundbreaking inventions from this time include Eric R. Fossum’s CMOS active pixel image sensor camera-on-a-chip (a fixture in smartphones), Arogyaswami Paulraj’s MIMO wireless technology for broadband internet access, Frances Ligler’s portable optical biosensors and Chieko Asakawa’s invention of the Home Page Reader – the first practical voice browser to provide effective internet access for blind and visually impaired computer users. Lynn Conway and Carver Mead’s Very Large-Scale Integration transformed the microelectronics industry and Robert Bryant developed LaRC-SI (Langley Research Center-Soluble Imide), a polymer used to insulate leads in implantable cardiac resynchronization therapy devices.

Patents 6,000,001 to 8,000,000 (2000-2010)

Many inventions that were patented through these years reflected the need for fast, reliable connections, as well as a more sustainable future.

Jaap Haartsen developed Bluetooth^® wireless technology to allow devices to wirelessly connect and communicate over short distances; Marian Croak invented Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, allowing voice data to be converted into digital signals that can be easily transmitted over the internet; and Jacqueline Quinn co-invented an environmentally safe cleanup technology called emulsified zero-valent iron, or EZVI.

Patents 800,000,001 to present (2011 to present)

Our Nation’s Greatest Innovators^™, National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees continue to lead significant advances across a wide range of fields.

Mick Mountz, Peter Wurman and Raffaello D'Andrea invented the Kiva system, a mobile robotic material handling system that has revolutionized order fulfillment. Luis von Ahn co-invented the website security program CAPTCHA, or Completely Automated Public Turing test for telling Computers and Humans Apart. He also created reCAPTCHA, furthering the work of CAPTCHA while assisting in the digitization of books and other archives, and co-founded Duolingo, a company whose online platform is the world’s most popular way to learn languages. Molecular biologists Philippe Horvath and Rodolphe Barrangou applied their CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) research to improve the world’s food supply while laying the foundation for the burgeoning field of gene editing, and Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman’s modified mRNA technology was used in COVID-19 vaccines, helping to address a global pandemic.

Learn More About World-Changing Inventors

All National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees, beyond the few highlighted here, have contributed to our society’s progress. The Hall of Fame is proud to honor these world-class inventors and to share their lessons and stories with the next generation of innovators.

To learn more about visionary inventors and their impact, plan your visit to the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum and keep exploring our blog.