Mary Dixon Kies was born on March 21, 1752, in South Killingly, Connecticut.
Mary Dixon was born on March 21, 1752, in South Killingly, Connecticut Colony, to John Dixon and his wife. She grew up in a rural New England community during the colonial period, a time when formal education and economic opportunities for women were extremely limited.
Little is documented about her earliest years, but she would go on to develop practical skills in textile work, particularly in weaving and hat-making, crafts commonly practiced by women in Connecticut's cottage industries. These skills would later culminate in the innovation that made her a historic figure: the first woman to receive a United States patent, granted in 1809 for her method of weaving straw with silk and thread.
Her birth predates the founding of the United States itself by more than two decades, situating her life across the transition from British colonial rule to the early American republic, a period of significant social and economic transformation, including the establishment of the U.S. Patent Office in 1790.