Day Fifty

The Mothers of Invention


Wherever you are in the world, you own, are probably using, or can see something invented by a woman.
  
Women have been inventing since time began but so often were not allowed (sometimes by law) to claim or patent their ideas and machines. 

In order to get something useful onto the market, they had to ask aman to register it.  Black women inventors had to resort to asking white men to help.
Ellen Eglin

Ellen Eglin (b.1849) invented the mangle or clothes wringer. 
At that time, laundry was washed by hand in a tub of hot, soapy water, scrubbed on a washboard and then wrung out. Then repeat to rinse.   Even large, linen bed sheets, curtains and huge, banquet  table cloths were processed this way.

Ellen knew if white women were aware a black woman had invented such a device they wouldn’t buy it and hard-working laundry maids across the USA would be deprived of something she knew would make their lives easier.  So with a remarkable spirit of altruism, she decided to sell, for a mere $18, “to a white man interested in the idea.”
The mangle went on to be a world-wide best seller, revolutionising not only laundry but much more.
Nurse Caroline Halstead

William Halstead is named as the inventor of rubber gloves but it was his wife, Caroline (1861-1922) a nurse who, having developed dermatitis at work, suggested he develop this idea. 
They worked.  Caroline used them in the operating theatre ever after, often to the scorn of surgeons who did not even wash their hands between patients.


Josephine Cochrane, (1839 –1913) the daughter of an engineer,  invented a commercial dishwasher after the hostess at a party complained her crockery had become chipped. 


As we switch from plastic bags (forget all those disposable gloves in landfill) to paper, we have Margaret Knight,  (1838-1914) to thank for the flat-bottomed paper bags which, with any luck, won’t deposit your leaking milk bottle and eggs on the pavement as you walk home. She also invented the machine which constructed them; the sash window and numerous other devices, including an Internal Combustion engine.
 She is not even mentioned on the Wikipedia page which covers that, only men are listed but here’s the proof.
Knight's Combustion engine


Ever wondered why we say ‘there’s a bug in the system’ when  computers go wrong?  That’s thanks to  Grace Hopper, a brilliant mathematician.  She devised a ‘compiler’, the first software,  which gave computers instructions.

 She once found  a moth in the Harvard Mk 1, seen above, hence the word debug.
Her inventive ideas were not popular with male computer programmers, then using only hardware. Grace suggested ‘software’ was the answer to their many problems
Grace and the unhappy men from Harvard
 Undeterred, Grace worked on her innovations, offering the mathematical solutions to a few leading computer programmers.  She was soon inundated with requests.  Thus inventing both Open Source and the first effective ‘software’, later named COBOL.

People who love tropical fish have Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794 - 1871) to thank for the aquarium. 
A marine biologist, wanting to study the Nautilus, she was convinced, against popular opinion that it made its own shell. She proved this.

The Landlord's Game, invented to teach the (sometimes evil) ways of Capitalism was the brain-child of Elizabeth Magie (1866 –1948) a game designer who  patented the idea in 1904.
It was not only a teaching device but a popular party game and at one of Magie’s dinner parties, Charles Darrow and his wife so enjoyed it, he asked for the rules.  He then went on to change it slightly and “invent” Monoply.
Myra Juliet Farrell

Australian Myra Farrell  1878 –1957) at just 10 years old, had the idea of the self-locking safety pin. She  patented many inventions: a folding pram hood, a method for automatically picking fruit, a baby sling and a press stud which doesn’t need stitching.

Also in the realm of baby care: Susan Olivia Poole 1889–1975, of Ojibway/Chippeway heritage observed how mothers would tie babies securely into a ‘papoose’ and hang this from flexible branches so the bouncing motion soothed the child.  Thus was born The Jolly Jumper, used and enjoyed by millions of babies around the world, mine included.


The wonderfully named Eldorado Jones, 1860–1932 invented a muffler to deaden the noise of aeroplanes.  People living near Heathrow  and Gatwick should probably alert the airlines about this 1931 invention.

Nicknamed, ‘The Iron Woman’ who mainly employed female worker over the age of 40 in her factory,  she also gave the world a lightweight electric iron, a travel-sized ironing board and an anti-damp salt shaker (whatever happened to that brilliant idea?)


Patrician Bath, pioneering Opthalmologist
Opthalmologist, Patricia Bath 1942 – 2019) developed and pioneered laser surgery for cataract removal, including improvements to the laser probe which delivered it.

How many military and police lives have been saved by the bullet resistant, stab-proof vests and combat helmets?

That’s thanks to Stephanie Kwolek (1923 –2014) and her invention - Kevlar.

Chemist, Stephanie Kwolek
Kevlar is heat resistant and many times stronger than steel.  
In an interview, Kwolek, stated:
Once senior DuPont managers were informed of the discovery, they assigned a group to work on it.”        The group did not include its inventor.

 DuPont and not Ms Kwolek profited from her invention, although they gave her a medal.
Kevlar  is used in a myriad ways including:  combat gear, parachute lines, fire fighters’ boots, cut-resistant gloves and armored cars, bomb-proofing, hurricane rooms and bridges as well as in many sports applications.


Women inventors also gave us:  fire escapes (Anna Connelly); life rafts (Maria Beasley); Solar Heating (Maria Telkes and Eleanor Raymond); the refrigerator (Florence Parpart).
Florence Parpart proudly shows her fridge 

 Alice Parker invented central heating) and  Ada Lovelace, daughter of the dissolute poet Lord Byron, came up with the algorithms which allowed computers to change the world.

 Maria van Britten Brown made a safer world when she invented Closed-circuit  TV as a result of the slow-response of police to call outs in her area.
Maria Brown inventor CCTV

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Women have been pioneers and inventive in every single walk of life and I could fill a book with their amazing discoveries (and many authors have).


Just one question. 



We have coffee filters (Melitta Benz) fridges, irons, ironing boards, dishwashers to make domestic life easier but why hasn’t someone invented a kitchen-sized,  reasonably priced automatic multiple potato peeler?  

  The Aztecs were spiritual people and among their pantheon of deities was the goddess Mayahuel who gave birth to 400 rabbits which she fe...