The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [58]
1930
Ruth Graves Wakefield, proprietor of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, invents chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookies. Her cookie invention was called the Toll House Cookie and used broken-up bars of semi-sweet chocolate.
1932
Hattie Elizabeth Alexander, an American pediatrician and microbiologist, develops a serum to combat Hemophilus influenzae, which at that time had a fatality rate of 100 percent in infants. In 1964, she is the first woman to be elected president of the American Pediatric Society.
1935
Irene Joliot Curie, the French scientist and daughter of Marie Curie, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry with her husband, for their discovery of radioactivity, making the Curies the family with most Nobel laureates to date.
1938
Katherine Blodgett, American physicist, invents a micro-thin barium stearate film to make glass completely nonreflective and “invisible.” Her invention has been used in eyeglasses, camera lenses, telescopes, microscopes, periscopes, and projector lenses.
1941
The actress Hedy Lamarr invents (along with George Anthiel) a “Secret Communications System” to help combat the Nazis in World War II.
1950
Marion Donovan invents the disposable diaper. When established manufacturers show little interest in this invention, she starts her own company, Donovan Enterprises, which she sells along with her diaper patents to Keko Corporation in 1951 for one million dollars.
1951
Bessie Nesmith invents Liquid Paper, a quickdrying white liquid painted onto paper to correct mistakes. She was a secretary in Texas when she hit upon her invention, which became so successful it grew into the Liquid Paper Company. (Fun fact: Her son, Michael Nesmith, grew up to be a member of the 1960s rock group the Monkees.)
1952
Mathematician and U.S. naval officer Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper invents the computer compiler, which revolutionized computer programming. She and her team also developed the first user-friendly business computer programming language, COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language).
1953
Dr. Virginia Apgar, a professor of anesthesiology at the New York Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, devises the Apgar Scale, a test now used all over the world to determine the physical status of a newborn baby.
1956
Patsy Sherman invents Scotchgard. She was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1983. Patsy Sherman and her colleague Sam Smith jointly hold thirteen patents in fluorochemical polymers and polymerization processes.
1957
Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen, researchers for the New York Department of Health, develop the anti-fungal antibiotic drug nystatin. The scientists donated the royalties from their invention, totaling over $13 million dollars, to the nonprofit Research Corporation for the Advancement of Academic Scientific Study. They were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.
1958
Helen Free, a biochemist and expert on urinalysis, invents the home diabetes test. She and her husband were inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000.
1964
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, a British biochemist and crystallographer, wins the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for using X-ray techniques to determine the structures of biologically important molecules, including penicillin, vitamin B-12, vitamin D, and insulin.
1964
Chemist Stephanie Louise Kwolek invents Kevlar, a polymer fiber that is five times stronger than the same weight of steel and is now used in bulletproof vests, helmets, trampolines, tennis rackets, tires, and many other common objects.
1966
Lillian Gilbreth becomes the first woman to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering. This inventor, author, industrial engineer, industrial psychologist, and mother of twelve children patented many kitchen appliances, including an electric food mixer, shelves inside