The world of science and inventions has always seemed reserved for men. A situation that obeys the prejudices and impediments that women have had throughout history to participate and publicize scientific work. Many of the inventions made by women have become popular, without even giving due recognition to their creators. Nor are there few cases of women’s inventions attributed to men. As you will see, many great female inventors throughout millennia of history have remained in the shadows. Today in Supercurioso we want to contribute our grain of sand for them. Here we present ten of the women inventors in history, who deserve to be known.
10 Great Inventors You Should Know
There have been many important women in history, who have known how to stand out in the most diverse areas. Science, literature, politics, culture, painting… But today we want to focus on great female inventors who, paradoxically, are not as well known. Do you dare to join us?
1.Mary Anderson
We begin this journey through the women inventors of history with Mary Anderson. An American real estate developer, rancher and viticulturist, she was a woman who stood out in her time. If you have driven in the rain and you have activated the windshield wipers to improve your visibility, then she is the one you should thank.. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mary Anderson visited NY for the first time and realized that the tram in which he was traveling through the snow-covered city could barely move, since every few minutes it was necessary to clean the snow that accumulated on the windshield. The drivers had no choice but to stop and clear the water and snow, which did not improve visibility much and slowed down a lot.
Upon his return to Alabama, Mary Anderson designed a windshield cleaning system that consisted of a squeegee that moved on an axis and that it was operated from inside the vehicle by means of a handle. In 1903 he obtained a patent for his invention and only ten years later the windshield wiper was already popular and common in cars in the United States. So today, in every corner of the cities, and in every car, we see one of the creations of the great inventors.
2.Ruth Wakefield
Ruth Wakefield is next on our list of women inventors in history. Dietitian, educator and chef, she developed a career and life always linked to her passions. And you will be surprised to learn that the greatest of his inventions is a gastronomic delight that you will surely have enjoyed more than once. Ruth’s story is peculiar. She had worked as a food and diet specialist before opening an inn outside Boston with her husband. These inns or toll houses were fast-paced places for travelers. A place to refuel and eat and then continue on the road.
Ruth was in charge of the kitchen and one day, While making cookies for her clients, she improvised a chocolate cookie recipe by adding pieces of chocolate from a Nestlé bar. The pieces of chocolate did not melt when baking the cookies and the cookies were filled with small pieces of chocolate. The biscuits were a great success with travelers and were soon marketed with Wakefield’s recipe on the back of the package. She is considered the inventor of the Toll House Cookie, the first chocolate chip cookie.
3. Angela Ruiz Robles
Among the women inventors in history, there are ladies who specialized in the most diverse fields. Angela Ruiz Robles’s was her education, and as a teacher she became one of the great inventors of her era. She taught classes in shorthand, typing, and business accounting. Ángela, she dedicated her life to research in Pedagogy and Didactics. From his work an invention was born that is considered the first electronic book in history, the so-called Mechanical Encyclopedia. A pioneering woman who patented this book in 1949 at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office.
This encyclopedia was created by Ruiz Robles in order to lighten the load of school backpacks and make learning more attractive for students. The encyclopedia consisted of several reels with very valuable information, a transparent sheet with a magnifying glass, light and sound with audio explanations of the content.
4.Bette Nesmith Graham
Another of the great inventors who is worth honoring is Bette Nesmith Graham. She was a typist working at the Bank of Texas in the 1950s who encountered the problem of the introduction of electric typewriters and the difficulties in correcting typing errors that were made on the job. It occurred to him to create a mixture of water-based tempera paint with dye and apply it with a brush on the errors and write over quickly correcting all errors. And that’s how the popular Liquid Paper was born, which was patented in 1958.
5. Grace Murray Hooper
We advance our journey through some of the most interesting women inventors in history, with Grace Murray Hooper. Although in the field of computing male names predominate, this North American knew how to make a difference. Hopper had been in the military since 1943, rising to be an admiral, and she was stationed at Harvard University, where he worked on the development of IBM’s Harvard Mark I computer, the first large-scale computer in the United States.
She is also known as the inventor of the compiler that translates English commands into computer code; of a second compiler to program UNIVAC I and II and for being the supervisor of the development of the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), one of the first programming languages.
6.Stephanie Kwolek
Another of the great inventors on our list is Stephanie Kwolek. She was a Polish-American chemist who invented polyparaphenylene terephthalamide, better known as Kevlar. If you don’t know what it is, it is a thin and versatile fiber, but tremendously strong. Bulletproof vests, military helmets and other materials that need these characteristics are made with it. It is also used in space tools as Kevlar can be up to five times stronger than steel. We must thank Kwolek for the survival of thousands and thousands of people, who, thanks to wearing a bulletproof vest, were saved from death.
7.Mary Beasley
María Beasley is another of the great women inventors in history. She is an American with a curious intellect and entrepreneurial work, He has more than fifteen patents on different inventions, many of them very important in saving lives. The two improved lifeboat models used on the Titanic and other longbows were designed by Beasley. What this inventor took into account to build the boats is that they were compact, safe, fireproof and easy to launch. Before their creation, with railings around the raft, rectangular metal floats, and the ability to fold and unfold, the boats were mere planks of wood.
8.Raquel Chan
We add to the list of women inventors who changed the world Raquel Chan, director of the Scientific and Technological Center of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) of the Santa Fe province, in Argentina. This woman has contributed to the revolution of agriculture, leading the team of scientists that created a seed more resistant to drought. It is the ge HAHB-4.2 that is obtained from sunflower, and that in addition to making the seed more resistant to drought, it makes the crops more tolerant to soil salinity. This discovery, already patented in China, Argentina, Brazil, India and the United States, could double the productivity of crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans.
9.Martha Coston
Among the women inventors in history, Martha Coston is remembered for creating the Coston flare, this useful signaling device at sea. The inventor was born in Baltimore in 1826, and died nearby, in Philadelphia, in 1904. These flares were first used by servicemen in the United States Navy, and later by Marine Rescue around the world. Coston’s work to invent the flares took more than ten years. The inventor was granted patents in England, Italy, Sweden, France, Denmark and the Netherlands. These flares were later used by the United States Navy in the Civil War.
10. Maria Telkes
And we close our tour of the great inventors of humanity, with Maria Telkes. She was a Hungarian-American scientist and inventor who worked on solar energy technologies and is known for developing the first solar heating system. The Ph.D. in physical chemistry was born in Hungary and worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Specifically, what Telkes invented was the first thermoelectric generator in 1947, and, following the investigation, the first thermoelectric refrigerator in 1953.
Other women who will inspire you
As we said well, the women inventors of history managed to succeed in different fields, despite the oppression. So if you join the positive feminism and recognize the achievements of these extraordinary women, because We share other articles with other names, which will surely inspire you.
And you, Did you know these great inventors? Which of them has been your favourite? Do you know of another one that you would like us to add to the list? Feel free to leave us your opinions in a comment. We will be happy to read you!