Griswold received U.S. Patent No. 116,585 for a further improvement in corset design, reflecting her continued innovation in apparel technology.
On July 4, 1871, Catharine Allsop Griswold was awarded U.S. Patent No. 116,585 for an improvement in corsets. This patent, granted five years after her initial 1866 patent for skirt-supporting corsets, demonstrates her sustained engagement with the design and refinement of women's foundational garments throughout the late nineteenth century.
The significance of this patent lies not only in its technical contribution but in what it reveals about Griswold's trajectory as an inventor: she was not a one-time patentee but rather someone who continually iterated on her designs over years, responding to market feedback and evolving fashion needs. By this point, corsetry had become an area of intense commercial competition, with numerous patents filed each year by manufacturers seeking to capture a share of the lucrative women's undergarment market.
Griswold's ability to secure multiple patents across more than a decade placed her among a small but growing cohort of women who used the U.S. patent system to protect and monetize their inventions during an era when women's legal and economic rights were still severely constrained. Her continued patent activity through the 1870s helped build the reputation that would later see her described as holding one of the largest patent portfolios among American women inventors of the nineteenth century, with contemporary accounts crediting her with over 30 apparel-related patents by the century's end.