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Female Inventors

From since the dawn of civilization women have been involved in every area of social advancement. The area of invention is no exception.  In modern times inventions patented by women cover many areas.

There are thousands of items in dozens of areas that have been patented by women. A quick glance reveals that in agriculture there is Rebbeca Mc Gee for the invention of an insecticide); and in the home Josepine Cochrane for the dishwasher; Ellen Eglin for the clothes wringer and Corudla Ackerman for the drip-coffee maker.  In area of electronics  Ida C. Himmer invented and patented the electric battery and in mechanics-Annie Frances and Maria Youlton  teamed-up and invented the sliding window. In the international arena of medicine there is physicist Madame Currie Polish by birth but French trained (Poland was taken over and divided by the European powers) and in the military Heddy Lamarr invented a remote-control, jam proof, military communication system. In cosmetics, one of the most notable is Madame C.J Walker who at the turn of the 1800 C became the first African American millionairess. In the area of childcare Marion Donavan invented and patented the first ever disposable diapers.

One cannot help but wonder that, given that women were not allowed to own property (and if they did it became the property of their husband, father, brother or nearest living male relative) how many of the invention patents claimed by men were made by their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and other female relations?

Here are a 5 inventions-Did you know these were invented and patented by women?

Mary Dixon Kies:

The Patent Act that allowed anyone to patent her invention came into being in 1790. The first patent claimed by a woman was in 1809 by Mary Dixon Kies of Connecticut.  She had invented a process of weaving straw, silk and or thread together. This may not seem as a big deal now, but at the time Napoleon Bonaparte and his French Army were at war against several European nations who were the primary suppliers of goods to North America. The war prevented the arrival of goods. And the U.S President at the time, Madison not wanting to become embroiled in Europe’s war encouraged efforts of national industry to replace the loss of goods. Kies invention did just that and both the President and the First Lady, Dolly Madison acknowledged Kies for contributing to her country’s economy.

Mary Anderson:

One day during the winter of 1903 Mary Anderson who was from Alabama was traveling on a streetcar in New York. She was supposed to be sightseeing but what got her attention was the streetcar driver. Every few minutes he had to stop and clean of the snow from the windshield. That was a moment of total serendipity. Right there and then Anderson drew a picture of an automatic windshield wiper which she later patented, in November of that year. What is amazing was that her patent was years before Henry Ford invented his famous Model T car.

Admiral Grace Murray Hopper:

Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a trailblazer. Not only was she the first female Admiral in the US Navy but she was at the forefront of the early stages of computing (what is now call computer technology). From the 1920s until the 1980s she was involved in academia, industry and the military. In 1949 while in the military she created the A-O compiler which used symbolic code to represent binary code. By 1956 her next creation B-O, was already in use. The B-O was an English Language data processor compiler which was in use to program the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) I and II, the first commercially available computers in the U.S. In 1960 Admiral Hopper invented COBOL (Common Business –Oriented Language). These are just a few of the amazing inventions of Admiral Grace Murray Hopper.

Bessie Nesmith Graham:

Before there was spell-check and the personal computer, there were typewriters and liquid paper / white-out. Regardless to how proficient typists were there were always incidences of error. In 1951 while working as the executive secretary for the Chairman of the Board of the Texas Band & Trust, she came up with the ingenious idea of mixing a little water-based paint the same shade as her office stationery and daubing it over any typing error. This so effective that few people realized that what seemed as a flawlessly typed document was really not so. What started as a simple solution for her errors became quite popular amongst her colleagues. By 1956 her simple 'white-out' had garnered such an interest that she started her business. Incidentally, her business which she thought she could moon-light at took up more time than she anticipated and led to her dismissal. In 1957 she patented and trademarked the product and name Liquid Paper ^©. By the  1975 a year before her death, the company was bought by the Gillette Corporation for $47.5 million dollars (USD).

Dr. Patricia Bath:

In 1959 Patricia Bath was 16 years old when she was chosen by the National Science Foundation of Yeshiva University to participate in a summer program. She developed a mathematical equation for the prediction of the growth of cancerous cells. Her finding was presented to an international conference in 1960 by Dr. Robert O. Bernard. In that same year she received an Award of Merit from Mademoiselle, the magazine for young girls. Later, as an African American doctor in a  Harlem Hospital with predominantly African American patients she noticed that their rate for blindness were double that of their white counterparts. Dr. Bath invented the Laserphaco Probe a surgical apparatus that made a very small incision into the infected eye to remove the cataract. It had taken five years to perfect the laser probe and in 1988 she got the first of five patents for her inventions. Dr. Bath also holds the patent for the invention in Canada, Japan and many European countries. Now that is business savvy!

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