Female Inventors
Mothers of Invention
Though Unsung and Ignored, Women Have Pushed Technology's Frontiers
People who remember Hedy Lamarr probably recall her as a sexy movie star of the 1930s and 1940s. Hardly anybody recalls that she invented a remote-controlled, jam-proof radio communications system for the U.S. military that was patented during World War II. Lamarr's situation is not unique. Many other female inventors throughout history have been forgotten completely, concealed or ignored even though products and technologies they devised are used every day. Take Bette Nesmith Graham. Few recognize her name, but many have made corrections to typewritten or printed pages using her invention, Liquid Paper, the first "correction fluid."
And most people have heard of Scotchgard but not of Patsy Sherman, a 3M Company chemist who created the fabric protector by accident.
Windshield wipers, curling irons, the bra, the automatic dishwasher, luggage carriers, cancer-fighting drugs, pain relievers, home security systems—all of these creations and hundreds of other technologies either were originated or improved upon by women.
Many were not allowed to claim formal credit because, until the mid-19th century, anything a woman owned or invented was legally her husband's possession. Even after passage of the Married Women's Property Acts in England and the United States, women often were wary of seeming too intellectual or calling attention to themselves, attributes considered rude and unladylike, says Mary Ruthsdotter, projects director for the National Women's History Project, based in Windsor, California.
As a result, many women were not properly acknowledged for their inventions. Some did not apply for a patent and let their ideas be claimed by another person. Others allowed their work to be patented under a man's name.
Women who did take credit for inventions often were not considered as "real" inventors if their creation was a household item, such as a clothes wringer or refrigerator. Unfortunately, this bias persists.
But as Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont Co. chemist and patent holder, stated in a 1990 speech on women inventors:
"Invention is invention. When the U.S. Patent Office issues a patent, it says officially, this is both original and practical. An industrial invention, though it might be more complicated, doesn't necessarily show any more real ingenuity than a non-industrial one."
The number of patents awarded to women is rising, according to the National Women's History Project. In 1888, women accounted for only 1 percent of U.S. patents issued. Recently, the proportion has increased to 6 percent.
Although most inventors today are scientists or engineers, neither profession is a prerequisite. Actresses, housewives, beauticians—even an English noble—have made outstanding innovations. Although hundreds of important women could be mentioned, here is a brief look at a few ingenious women and the stories behind their inventions.
Hypatia (370-415 A.D.)
Mathematician and natural philosopher
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Hypatia is among the first women known to have participated in the male-dominated scientific and academic world. Her father was a mathematician and director of the great University of Alexandria, and she eventually became one of the university's most popular teachers, lecturing on Platonic philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.
She is thought to have written commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica and the Conics of Appollonius, texts on mathematics and grammar, respectively, and assisted her father in revising Euclid's Elements, the oldest surviving Greek mathematical work. Hypatia's edition of the Elements is used today.
Letters from Hypatia's students indicate that she designed scientific instruments including an astrolabe to determine the position of stars, planets and the sun, and developed an apparatus for distilling water, an instrument for determining water levels and a hydrometer, which measured "specific gravity" of liquids. Today, such devices are used to check a car battery's charge by testing the acid.
Hypatia ran afoul of Christian zealots, who believed science and mathematics were enemies of their religion. In 415, according to historians, a group including monks from the Church of St. Cyril dragged Hypatia into a church and murdered her.
Scholars say the murder signified the end of Platonic teaching in Alexandria and the Roman Empire. Interest in mysticism and astrology soon replaced scientific research and reasoning that Plato, and neo-Platonists such as Hypatia, had espoused.
Sybilla Masters (died 1720)
Corn processing
In 1715, the British government acknowledged that Masters, an American colonist, had created a new way "for cleaning and curing the Indian corn growing in several colonies in America." Even King George I praised her invention as having played an important role in developing the Pennsylvania economy.
But, in a classic demonstration of the bias against women inventors, the crown issued the patent in the name of her husband, Thomas. It would be almost a century before an American woman would be recognized as an inventor in her own right.
Mary Dixon Kies (early 19th century)
Straw and silk weaving
The first patent granted to a woman by the U.S. Patent Office was given in 1809 to Kies, of Connecticut, for a method of weaving straw with silk. The patent was destroyed in a 1836 Patent Office fire, so it is unclear whether her invention was for a machine or a process.
Straw weaving was an economically vital industry in America during the 1800s. Most women then wore bonnets, especially for work in the fields.
According to scholar Autumn Stanley, who wrote Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology in 1993, straw bonnets manufactured in Massachusetts alone in 1810 had an estimated value of more than $500,000. That amounts to $4.7 million in today's money.
Ruthsdotter says the success of the New England hat business kept the area's economy strong through an economic crisis aggravated by the war of 1812. Kies's invention made these hats more cost-effective to produce.
Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852)
Computer programmer
Ada Lovelace is considered the world's first computer programmer. She originated the concept of using binary numbers, a practice used in all modern computers.
At age 14, the only child of English poet Lord Byron was tutored by famous mathematician Augustus De Morgan, who once wrote that Ada had "a man's strength" in solving mathematical problems. When Ada was 17, De Morgan and his wife took her to parties at the home of Charles Babbage, a fellow mathematician and inventor.
Two years later, Ada married William, Lord Lovelace, and after the birth of their third child, began working as Babbage's assistant. The two sought to develop his "analytical engine." It was a mechanical computer, using gears and ratchets to perform large mathematical calculations and was controlled by two series of punched cards.
Babbage had tried initially to make the engine use the standard decimal system of numbers, but Lovelace suggested the much simpler binary number system in which all ordinary numbers are represented as a series of zeroes and ones. Her main contribution was creating the programming code that ran Babbage's machine. These programs indicate that Lovelace understood many modern-day programming concepts such as looping and indexing.
Although the extent of Lovelace's contributions has been debated, the computer world honored her in the 1970s when a programming language adopted by the Defense Department was named Ada.
Ellen Eglin (late 19th century)
Clothes wringer
Not surprisingly, women have been quite innovative in the clothes washing field, creating new and improved powders, wringers and machines.
Eglin, a black resident of the District, invented a highly successful clothes wringer in the 1880s but did not patent it. In 1888, she sold her wringer to an agent for a mere $18. Asked why she sold so cheaply, she reportedly said:
"You know I am black and if it was known that a Negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer. I was afraid to be known because of my color in having it introduced into the market. That is the only reason."
But the historical encyclopedia Black Women in America says five African-American women did overcome these obstacles and received patents between 1885 and 1898. They ranged from Sara E. Goode, a Chicago furniture store owner who created a "folding cabinet bed" much like a modern day sofa bed, to Miriam E. Benjamin, who invented a "gong and signal chair" for hotels. The U.S. House of Representatives later used one of Benjamin's devices to signal its pages.
Margaret Knight (1838-1914)
Paper bag production
A cotton mill worker from age 9 through her late teens, Knight designed a machine that folded and glued paper to form the brown paper bags familiar today.
She built a wooden model of the device, but needed a working iron model to apply for a patent. However, a man working in the machine shop where Knight's iron model was being built stole her design and patented the invention.
Knight filed a successful patent interference lawsuit and was issued the patent in 1870. With a Massachusetts businessman, she established the Eastern Paper Bag Co. and received royalties totaling $25,000 ($278,000 in today's money), plus company stock and quarterly dividends. With few financial concerns, Knight entered other fields, receiving patents for several industrial machines, including a rotary engine.
Mary Walton (late 19th century)
Anti-pollution devices
Pollution was a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution, and this New York City resident was a trailblazer in the fight against air and noise pollutants.
In 1879, Walton developed a system that bubbled factory smoke emissions through water tanks that retained the chemicals, thenflushed them into the city's sewage system.
In 1891, she received another patent for an apparatus that reduced noise from elevated train tracks by surrounding the rails with a wood frame that was cotton-lined, painted with tar and filled with sand. These materials absorbed noisy vibrations of passing trains.
Beulah Louise Henry (born 1887)
"Lady Edison"
Henry, who received her first patent at age 25 for an ice cream freezer with a vacuum seal was such a prolific inventor that the media and the Patent Office dubbed her "Lady Edison." Experts disagree on how many patents Henry held, but she is thought to have created hundreds of items, some of which were were not patented or were sold to corporations, most notably toy and doll manufacturers.
Henry received the nickname not only because of the large number of inventions but also for her wide spectrum of ideas such as a hair curler, a football inflating device and a bobbin-less sewing machine. Several of her inventions dealt with typewriters. One, for example, was the Protograph, an attachment that allowed a typewriter to make an orginal and four copies of a document without carbon paper.
She also made numerous contributions to the toy industry with patents for dolls and other movable toys that could kick, blink, eat and even talk.
By age 37, Henry was president of two corporations—one to manage her prolific invention business and the other a manufacturer of the popular umbrella she invented. It had detachable, snap-on covers in colors that could be interchanged.
Katherine Blodgett (1898-1979)
Nonreflecting Glass
In 1917, Blodgett was the first female scientist hired at General Electric's research lab, initially assisting Nobel Prize-winner Irving Langmuir in his work with monomolecular coatings. These were oily chemical compounds only one molecule thick and covering a surface of water, metal or glass.
Over the years, Blodgett developed a practical application of Langmuir's theories, resulting in "invisible" glass. She found a way to add layers of these compounds to glass to cut reflected glare. This invention allowed images to pass through eyeglasses, telescopes, cameras, periscopes and microscopes without distortion or loss of light.
Since Blodgett's patent was issued in 1938, her discovery has been used in many ways: enhancing the showing of "Gone With the Wind," accelerating de-icing of aircraft wings, artificial rainmaking and increasing effectiveness of smoke screens.
Marjorie Joyner (1896-1994)
Permanent wave machine
In 1928, Joyner was granted a patent for a machine that would "wave the hair of both white and colored people." Despite its strange appearance, her invention was extremely popular. The machine was electrically powered and had wires, cords and clamps that attached to the hair from an overhead, suspended dome.
When Joyner received her patent, she was working for Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker, better known as Madame C.J. Walker, who invented a hot comb that straightened black hair and who built a million-dollar business selling beauty and hair care products to African-Americans. Because Joyner's patent legally belonged to Walker's company, she never received profits from her invention.
Hedy Lamarr (born 1913)
Radio communications system
The Viennese-born femme fatale of 1930s and 1940s films is a lot more than just a pretty face.
The actress, whose real name is Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, immigrated to the United States during the early years of World War II. She is best known for sultry roles in such movies as "Ecstasy" and "Samson and Delilah," but she also coinvented a remote-controlled, anti-jamming communications system, a major contribution to U.S. defense technology.
According to Bethesda resident Anne Macdonald, author of a book about American women inventors and a patent-holder herself for a knitting machine, Lamarr learned about designs for military technologies while married to a wealthy Austrian arms dealer for three years. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Austria in 1938, she left her husband and went to London, where Louis B. Mayer of MGM Studios changed her name and signed her up as his company's newest screen sensation.
In 1942, Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for the communications system, which employed a feature known as frequency hopping. A radio signal, such as those used to direct torpedoes, would "hop" from one broadcast frequency to another at certain intervals. Therefore, if a receiver was not synchronized to receive the entire signal, the signal could not be "jammed" nor deciphered.
Lamarr's invention did not fit MGM's image of her as a glamorous movie star, and her creative side was a well-kept secret in Hollywood. Still, Lamarr was so passionate about helping the war effort that she seriously considered abandoning acting to join the National Inventors Council full-time.
Lamarr's system was never used during World War II, but long after her patent expired, the Sylvania Corp. adopted and further developed the idea.
Ruth Handler (born 1917)
Barbie doll and breast prosthesis
As cofounder of Mattel Toy Corp., Handler created Barbie, the world's most famous doll and an American icon. Handler developed Barbie into one of history's most successful toys. In 1995, the Barbie brand earned Mattel $1.4 billion in worldwide sales.
But when Handler lost a breast to cancer in 1970, she turned her business acumen toward helping other women who had had mastectomies. After a difficult experience trying to find a suitable prosthesis, Handler had an artifical breast designed and custom-made for her. She then founded Ruthon Corp. with the designer and developed the "Nearly Me" prosthesis, which is more realistic than prev ious models.
Gertrude Belle Elion (born 1918)
Cancer drugs and kidney transplants
The first woman inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Elion is named on 45 patents, most notably for discoveries of medicines that fight leukemia, gout and herpes and a drug that suppresses the immune system, helping the body to accept transplanted tissue.
She won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988 for her work with collegue George Hitchings and researcher Sir James Black.
Elizabeth Lee Hazen (1885-1975) and Rachel Fuller Brown (1898-1980)
Antifungal antibiotic
Both worked for the New York State Department of Health—Hazen in New York City and Brown in Albany—when they received a patent in 1957 for Nystatin, the first fungus-fighting drug. Hundreds of miles apart, Hazen and Brown collaborated by mailing tests and samples to each other.
Not only does Nystatin cure fungal infections of the skin and digestive system, but it also has been used to treat Dutch elm disease and in restoring artwork damaged by mold.
Hazen and Brown donated all royalties from Nystatin, totaling $13 million when their patent expired, to academic science. They were installed in the hall of fame in 1994.
Edith M. Flanigen (born 1929)
Petroleum research
Flanigen has received 102 patents in petroleum research and product development. Her major contribution has been work on "molecular sieves" used to filter microscopic particles from complex mixtures and on catalysts, special molecules that speed chemical reactions. Her discoveries have been used to convert crude oil to gasoline, in water purification and in environmental cleanup.
Erna Schneider Hoover (born 1926)
Telephone switching system
In 1954, Hoover became a researcher at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, where she created a computerized telephone switching system. Her device, which used a computer to monitor incoming calls and then adjusted the call acceptance rate, eliminated overloading problems. The principles of Hoover's system are used by communications companies today.
Mary Spaeth (born 1940)
Laser technology
Spaeth, who holds a master's degree in physics, has produced several inventions dealing with laser technology. While working at Hughes Aircraft, for example, she invented the tunable dye laser, which can be manipulated to produce light of different wavelengths and, hence, different colors. The ability to vary the color means that a single laser can be used for a variety of applications.
Spaeth's resonant reflector, originally created for the Army, may have more significance for the average consumer. It's an integral part of laser devices used to scan bar codes at cash registers.
Stephanie Louise Kwolek (born 1923)
Polymers and fibers
While a chemist at E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co., Kwolek experimented with a variety of strong fibers and discovered liquid crystalline polymers in 1965.
The most famous product resulting from this is Kevlar, whose fibers are stronger than steel. Kevlar is used to make bulletproof vests, fiber-optic cables, outdoor clothing, radial tires and airplane fuselages.
The fiber generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue worldwide, and many police officers owe their lives to Kwolek and her findings. She is the most recent inductee into the hall of fame.
Female Inventors
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