The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [57]
1870
Martha Knight patents a machine to produce flat-bottomed paper bags. She also becomes the first woman in the United States to fight and win a patent suit, when she defended her patent against a man who had stolen her design and filed for his own patent on it. He claimed a woman couldn’t possibly have the mechanical knowledge needed to invent such a complex machine, but Knight was able to back up her claim. After her success, she went on to develop and patent several other machines, including rotary engines and automatic tools.
1875
Susan Taylor Converse of Woburn, Massachusetts, invents a one-piece, nonrestrictive flannel undergarment. It was patented by manufacturers George Frost and George Phelps and marketed to American women (eager to free themselves from traditional tightly bound corsets) as the “Emancipation Suit.”
1876
Susan Hibbard patents the feather duster over protestations of her husband, George Hibbard, who claimed the invention was his. The patent court justly awarded ownership of the patent to her.
1876
Emeline Hart, a member of the Shaker community, invents and patents a commercial oven featuring pierced metal shelves for even heating, four separate oven compartments, isinglass (mica) windows, and a temperature gauge.
1885
Sarah E. Goode, born a slave in 1850, obtains the first patent by an African American woman inventor for her folding cabinet bed, a spacesaver that when folded up could be used as a desk, complete with compartments for stationery and writing supplies.
1888
Miriam Benjamin, a Washington, DC, schoolteacher, becomes the second black woman to receive a patent. Her invention, “The Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels,” allowed hotel customers to summon a waiter from the comfort of their chairs and was adapted and used in the United States House of Representatives.
1889
Josephine Garis Cochran, of Shelbyville, Illinois, invents the first working automatic dishwasher. Her invention was first shown at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, and eventually went on to become associated with the KitchenAid company.
1902
Ida Henrietta Hyde is named the first female member of the American Physiological Society. She was also the first woman to graduate from the University of Heidelberg and the first woman to do research at the Harvard Medical School. She went on to invent the microelectrode in the 1930s, which revolutionized the field of neurophysiology.
1903
Mary Anderson, of Alabama, invents the windshield wiper. Patented in 1905, windshield wipers became standard equipment on cars a decade later.
1903
Scientist Marie Curie is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her discovery of the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She is awarded the Nobel Price for Chemistry in 1911, making her the first person to win two Nobel prizes.
PATENT FACTS
The U.S. Patent Act of 1790 allowed anyone to protect his or her invention with a patent. However, because in many states women could not legally own property independent of their husbands, many women inventors didn’t apply for patents, or only did so under their husbands’ names.
The majority of the U.S. origin patents held by women inventors are in chemical technologies.
About 35 percent of the women granted U.S. patents between 1977 and 1996 were from California, New York, or New Jersey.
With over 125 patents in areas related to organic compounds and textile processing, Dr. Giuliana Tesoro (born in 1921) is one of the most prolific scientists in the world.
1912
Beulah Henry of Memphis, Tennessee, receives her first patent, for an ice-cream freezer. She went on to create over 100 inventions, including the first bobbinless sewing machine, an umbrella with changeable covers, and continuously attached envelopes for mass mailings. She earned a total of forty-nine patents, the last one issued in 1970.
1914
Mary Phelps Jacob invents the modern bra. She was inspired to fashion a comfortable upper-body undergarment after becoming fed up with