Famous Women Inventors of the 20th Century
Mary Anderson
Anyone who's ever driven in a rain or snow storm can attest to the dire importance of windshield wipers. What a lot of people don't know is that windshield wipers were invented by a woman. Inventor Mary Anderson received a patent for her car-window cleaning device in 1903.
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Patricia Billings
Imagine a building material that is indestructible, fire-proof and non-toxic. Sounds like something you'd find in a work of science fiction, but actually it's a very-real invention called Geobond®, designed by female inventor Patricia Billings.
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Marion Donovan
Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1917, inventor Marion Donovan was instilled
with an inventive spirit at a young age. She spent the greater part of her
childhood hanging around the manufacturing plant run by her father and uncle,
two men who combined to invent, among other things, an industrial lathe for
grinding automobile gears and gun barrels.
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Bette Nesmith Graham
As electric typewriters came into widespread use after World War II, Bette
Nesmith Graham and countless other secretaries let out a collective groan.
The new machines did make typing easier, but their carbon-film ribbons made
it impossible to correct mistakes neatly with a pencil eraser. As a result
of this predicament, Graham ended up inventing one of the most widely used
office products of the 20th century.
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Ruth Handler
Perhaps one of the most famous toys in American history, the Barbie doll is a staple in the toy chests of little girls everywhere. Along with co-founding the renowned toy company Mattel, woman inventor Ruth Handler also designed the doll that would become an American cultural icon.
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Dr. Grace Murray Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper was a curious child. At the age of seven, she dismantled
her alarm clock to figure out how it worked, but was unable to reassemble
it. By the time her mother figured out what she had been up to, the young
female inventor had gone through seven clocks in the house.
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Mary Phelps Jacob
Imagine putting on an excruciatingly tight vest stiffened with whalebones
and steel rods that poke into your torso, holding your upper body in an unnatural,
agonizing position. Does this sound like some kind of medieval torture device?
Not quite. In the early part of the 20th century, women’s undergarments
were barbarous, awkward and very unhealthy for the wearer.
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Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Kwolek wanted to study medicine while growing up in New Kensington,
Pennsylvania, and that desire persisted as she worked toward her B.A. in chemistry
at Carnegie Mellon University. After finishing her degree, however, Kwolek
took a temporary research position with DuPont, where her work turned out
to be so interesting that she decided to stay on - a decision that lead to
her becoming one of the century's most famous women inventors.
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Heddy Lamarr
Although better known for her Silver Screen exploits, Austrian actress Hedy
Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) also became a pioneer in the field
of wireless communications following her emigration to the United States.
The international beauty icon, along with co-inventor George Anthiel, developed
a "Secret Communications System" to help combat the Nazis in World
War II.
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Ann Moore
As a Peace Corps nurse during the 1960s in Togo, West Africa, Ann Moore saw
African mothers do something that she found very interesting: they carried
their babies in fabric slings tied securely on their backs. Moore liked the
closeness between babies and their mothers when carried in this way. This
famous woman inventor observed how the babies seemed so calm because they
felt secure and near to their mothers.
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Patsy Sherman
As inventor Patsy Sherman can attest, innovation is often triggered by an
unexpected or seemingly trivial occurrence. Hired as a research chemist by
3M Company in 1952, Sherman became one of only a tiny handful of women in
the field. She was assigned to work on fluorochemicals, where she and her
colleague, Sam Smith, were charged with developing a new kind of rubber for
jet aircraft fuel lines.
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Dr. Giuliana Tesoro
Did you know that there was a woman inventor who obtained more than one hundred
and twenty-five patents? Her name was Giuliana Tesoro, and she helped to make
great strides in the field of fiber and textile chemistry.
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Ruth Wakefield
Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite treat for people of all ages, but without
Ruth Wakefield, the world might never have tasted those sweet delights. Born
in 1905, Wakefield grew up to be a dietician and food lecturer after graduating
from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924.
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Rachel Zimmerman
In the mid-1980s, a twelve-year old girl developed an invention that greatly
helped people who have difficulty communicating. Rachel Zimmerman of Ontario,
Canada created a software program using Blissymbols: symbols that enable non-speaking
people, such as those with severe physical disabilities like cerebral palsy,
to communicate.
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