On May 5, 1809, Mary Kies became the first woman to receive a patent in the United States for her technique of weaving straw with silk.
Does it mean that women inventors didn’t exist earlier? Obviously, they did, but property laws in many states had made it illegal for women to own property on their own. This led some women to apply for patents in their husbands’ names if they decided to apply at all. With time though, the figures look promising. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s stats, in 2019, women were included as owners of nearly 22% of all patents filed that year, with 12.8% of them owned by individual women.
Yet when asked about how many women inventors we could name? it would be a handful! What if I told you that multiple inventions in our daily lives are by women inventors – which one are they? Who are the inventors? Let me help you out.
On this Women’s Day, we pay tribute to the women inventors whose inventions have made a huge impact on our daily lives, and the next time someone asks you the name of a women scientist, you don’t have just one but plenty to give them!
1) Hedy Lamarr’s Wireless Transmission Technology (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.)
Hedy Lamarr, the inventor of Wireless Transmission technology, was an Austrian-born American actress, inventor, and film producer. She is well known for her role in the 1940s Oscar-nominated films ‘Algiers’ and ‘Sampson and Delilah’. She was once known as the world’s most beautiful woman. But it was her technology curiosity that left a greater imprint on the world.
Despite no scientific training, she had the mindset of an inventor, and these things came naturally to her. In 1941, Hedy along with her co-inventor George Antheil, developed a system for radio communication today that became a precursor to secure Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth now used by billions of people around the world. The basic idea that Hedy Lamarr had in her mind was for a form of radio control mechanism for torpedoes by using a frequency hopping mechanism. The duo went to National Inventions Council to showcase their idea and the idea was put into reality. Hedy filed a patent on the system under the title “Secret Communication System” which was granted to her on 11th August 1941. (Source) (Source)
2) Katharine Burr Blodgett’s Invisible Glass
Have you looked at a glass and seen your reflection? Now try looking at the eyeglass or camera lens, you won’t see your reflection. This is because of Katharine Burr Blodgett’s invention. Glass is naturally a reflective material, but when you wear eyeglasses you don’t want to see the reflection of your eyes back but the world around you. She invented an anti-reflective coating; the coating is named as Langmuir-Blodgett film, in honor of Blodgett and her mentor, Irving Langmuir, who was also instrumental in the development of these anti-reflective films. Blodgett’s patented film and process (1938) now has been used for many purposes including limiting distortion in eyeglasses, microscopes, telescopes, cameras, and projector lenses.
In the 1930s, she was the very first woman to ever work as a research scientist at General Electric (GE). She filed multiple patents during her work at GE. During the Second World War Blodgett made another outstanding breakthrough: the smoke screens. The smoke screens saved many lives by covering the troops, thereby protecting them from exposure to toxic smoke. She was awarded multiple awards for her contributions to science and technology. (Source) (Source)
3) Ada Lovelace’s Computer Algorithm
Ada Lovelace is known to be the first computer programmer in the world. She was the daughter of famed poets Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke Byron. She was interested in the work of Charles Babbage, who was working on a prototype of the first automatic digital computer. In 1843, she came to translate and annotate an article written by the Italian mathematician and engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea, “Notions Sur la machine analytique de Charles Babbage” (1842; “Elements of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Machine”).
It was during that time that her detailed and elaborative annotations laid the foundation for computer algorithms. The early programming language Ada was named after her, and the second Tuesday in October was renounced as Ada Lovelace Day. (Source)
4) Nancy Jhonson’s Ice-cream Freezer
Nancy Jhonson was the producer of an ice cream freezing machine in 1843 (before freezers were invented). It was a manual device cranked by a handle. The device contained an outer wooden pail that contained crushed ice and an inner tin cylinder that contained the ice cream mix to be frozen. It was possible to split the inner cylinder such that 2 different ice cream flavors could be frozen simultaneously but separately. The invention was patented in 1843, the first such device listed, but Nancy sold it off for $200. It did, however, become the standard mechanism for many years, and someone made a fortune out of this invention. (Source) (Source)
5) Florence Parpart’s Electric Refrigerator
The modern-day household equipment electric refrigerator was invented by Florence Parpart in 1914 and was thereafter patented. It isn’t just one invention that is patented in her name, but she also received a patent for a much improved the street-cleaning machine in 1900, which she negotiated and sold to cities throughout the United States. (Source)
6) Josephine Cochran’s Dishwasher
Josephine Cochran was the inventor of the dishwasher, which is an irreplaceable part of our households now. Though people before her had tried to make dishwashers, their inventions had loopholes.
Could you believe that this invention was designed in the shed behind her house? You heard that right!
Her dishwasher was the first to use water pressure instead of scrubbers to clean the dishes. She patented the machine and received the patent on December 28, 1886.
She had expected the public widespread adoption of her idea, but only hotels and large restaurants were buying her ideas. It was not until the 1950s that dishwashers caught on with the general public. She founded a company to manufacture these dishwashers, which eventually became KitchenAid. (Source)
7) Mary Anderson’s Windshield Wiper
Mary Anderson, during her trip to New York, observed that her driver had to get out and continuously clean the windshield of the car. That gave her the idea for a windshield wiper, for which she filed a patent. After receiving a patent in 1903, she tried to sell her new device to car manufacturers, who refused, stating that her invention lacked practical value. Her windshield wipers failed to take off before her patent expired, and it was 10 years before a similar device became standard on cars. In 2011, she was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame. (Source) (Source)
8) Marie Van Brittan Brown’s Home Security System
Marie Van Brittan Brown, an African American nurse, was living in Queens. She was working an odd shift and did not feel safer, given the crime rate and slow police response. Taking help from her husband, she made a home security system that consisted of camera peepholes connected to a screen. It also consisted of a microphone on the door and a speaker inside to listen to anyone on the door. They filed a patent for the device in 1966, which was granted three years later.
Although the system did not become a hit given its high cost, yet, it was one of the kind systems which led to further innovations by serving the blueprint. (Source)
9) Shirley Ann Jackson’s Caller ID and call-waiting
Shirley Ann Jackson was a physicist and former head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and was one of the first two Black American women to receive a doctorate in physics in the U.S. and the first to receive a doctorate from MIT. Her contributions to the field of telecommunications led to the invention of numerous technologies, including caller ID and call-waiting, as well as solar cells and fiber optic cables. (Source) (Source)
10) Tabitha Babbitt’s Circular Saw
Tabitha Babbitt, a young woman living in Shaker community in Massachusetts, observed men working hard on cutting wood logs. At that time a pit saw was used which consisted of a straight blade and two handles on either side. Pit saw was used by two men side to side to cut wood. She thought to use a circular blade for her spinning wheel weaving machine.
The pit saw only cut the wood when it was being pulled forward, meaning the second or reverse pull was fairly useless other than to get the saw back to the starting position. While in the circular saw no movement was wasted. (Source)
While sharing what I just discovered with GreyB members, Shubhendu from the IP Solutions team added one more invention to the list
Rosalind Franklin – Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognized during her life, for which she has been variously referred to as the “wronged heroine”, the “dark lady of DNA”, the “forgotten heroine”, a “feminist icon”, and the “Sylvia Plath of molecular biology”
I couldn’t help but notice that women are greatly observant, and it was with this skill that they could find solutions to problems that people didn’t know existed. The next time someone falls short of naming women inventors, show them this list.
Next Read: This International Women’s day, let’s celebrate the women in IP
Authored by: Harleen Singh, Analytics team
