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Mothers of Invention
Many of our Everyday Items and
Technical Breakthroughs were invented by Women
A Newspaper In Education Supplement to The Washington Times
Mothers of Invention
Adapted from the “Mothers of Invention” show aired on the History Channel.
What do hang gliders,
windshield wipers, shopping
bags and Barbie dolls all have
in common? All of these were
invented by women!
woman, not a man, who
invented the wheel because
it was the women’s job to
carry goods, while the men
protected them.
Necessity, they say, is the
mother of invention. And
among those inventors who
When America was founded
in 1776, under U.S. law,
patents were considered
the hat industry but the
whole New England economy
as well. First Lady Dolley
Madison honored Mary for
her contribution to hatmaking and to the creativity
of women.
in machinery, tools, or
engines. But that was what
Margaret Knight lived for.
She had no interest in dolls
or in playing house; she
wanted jack knives, sleds, or
hammers and nails and to
The First Women
Patent Holders
Mary Kies finally changed
that. In 1809, she became
the first woman in America
to hold a patent. The
independent Mary insisted
on taking credit for her
own work and, though she
was married, her native
Connecticut had no statue to
prevent her from doing so.
Good timing made a success
of her invention – a machine
for weaving ladies’ hats.
Starlet Hedy Lamarr
PAGE / Monday, September 21, 2009
husband’s name or that of a
male business associate, or
sometimes didn’t patent them
at all. Although the Patent
Act was passed in 1790,
women were either prevented
by statute, or persuaded by
social pressure, not to pursue
patents for almost 20 years.
have recognized a need
and created a solution are
a surprising number of
women. From a secretary,
Bette Nesmith Graham, who
invented liquid paper, to
a Hollywood starlet, Hedy
Lamarr, who helped create
a secret communications
system that aided in defeating
the Nazis, an array of women
from all walks of life have
joined the ranks of inventors.
They are literally the mothers
of invention.
When we think of inventors,
we think of Thomas Edison,
Alexander Graham Bell, or
the Wright brothers — all
men. But women have been
the inventors of some of the
most important creations
of all time. Undoubtedly,
women have been inventing
from the beginning of human
history. Perhaps it was a
intellectual property. Women
were not allowed to own
property and therefore
couldn’t hold a patent. That
is, until fourteen years later,
when the Patent Act of 1790
declared that both women
and men could obtain patents
in their own names to protect
their inventions. It was a step
towards equality. But there
was a catch. Only women
who were single or widowed
actually had the legal
capability to hold patents.
At the time, many state
statues had restrictions for
married women. Once a man
and woman married, they
became legally one person.
Any property that the woman
owned before marriage or
acquired during marriage
essentially belonged to her
husband. So in these states,
married women patented
their inventions under their
At the time, because the
United States was trying
to remain neutral in the
Napoleonic Wars, President
James Madison had ordered
an embargo on European
goods. Since no goods were
coming into the country
there was less competition for
Mary’s hats. Her hats became
extremely popular and this
not only helped to bolster
Example of a Mary Kies Hat
Drawings from Margaret’s patent application.
Image courtesy of the Framingham Historical Society and Museum, and the
National Museum of American History--Smithsonian Institution.
By the mid 1800s, the
industrial revolution was in
full swing, especially in the
American Northeast. Many
women went to work in
factories and mills in order to
help support their families.
In 1850, Margaret Knight
joined this rapidly growing
working class. She was only
12 years old.
At this point, there were
many textile mills in New
England. It was generally
assumed that any girl from
the lower middle classes
would eventually go to work
in one of these mills. The
mills were not particularly
pleasant places to work, but
working in a mill proved
a good move for Margaret
Knight, because this gave her
an opportunity to explore
machinery.
Young Margaret was a
tomboy. She grew up in New
England at a time when
women were not expected to
have any interest whatsoever
build things out of wood.
At the mill, Margaret had
the opportunity to put her
youthful experiences to work.
One day, she saw an accident
where a young mill girl was
hurt by a spindle that flew
off a machine. So 12-yearold Margaret invented some
kind of a device designed to
prevent this. At this point,
we don’t know exactly what
this device was. It’s possible
it was some kind of a stopaction mechanism, a fail-safe
that would turn off the loom
if there seemed to be any
kind of stress on it that might
result in a flying object.
But Margaret was just getting
started. She later went to
work in a factory that made
paper bags. At the time, most
bags for toting things, like
groceries, were shaped like
envelopes. The few squarebottomed bags that were
available were expensive and
hand-made. Margaret had
been at work for just a week
and immediately saw that
they needed a machine that
Around this time she
decided to get a patent on
her invention. Part of the
specification said that she
needed a working model
cast in iron. So she brought
her wooden model along
with her directions to a
professional manufacturer.
The machinist didn’t get to
work on the project right
away. In the meantime, he
put the model in his shop
window while he waited to
have a chance to work on it.
While it sat there a local man
named Charles Annan came
by and happened to notice
the model. Recognizing it
as a paper bag machine, he
found excuses to come back
to the machinist several times
over the course of the next
few months. By the time the
machinist had gotten around
to building Margaret Knight’s
model in iron, Charles Annan
had create and patented a
working model of a paper bag
machine based on Margaret’s
design.
When Margaret found out,
she set out to prove that the
invention was hers. Margaret
took Charles Annan to court.
The trial lasted about 16 days
and cost her about $1,600
but she was able to prove that
she actually had the idea long
before Charles had it. Charles
Annan’s strongest argument
for his defense was that since
Margaret was a woman, she
couldn’t have possibly have
come up with this mechanical
invention. At the time, most
people believed that there
were two distinct spheres
in life, a man’s world and a
woman’s world. It wasn’t in
the natural order of things
for ladies to be inventors.
Nevertheless, Margaret won
her case and was awarded this
patent in 1873. She went on
from there to create over 90
little woman who was trying
to emulate the great inventor
Thomas Edison? But as more
and more women started
going public with their
inventions, the legion of Lady
Edison’s began to earn the
respect they deserved.
Among them were Amanda
Jones, who developed a
vacuum process for canning
foods, Beulah Louise Henry,
who invented the bobbin-less
sewing machine, and Madam
C.J. Walker, who created an
empire in the beauty industry.
First African
American
Women
Entrepreneur
Madam C.J. Walker was
a particularly interesting
inventor. She was an AfricanAmerican woman, coming
from extremely humble
origins. The daughter of freed
slaves; Madam C.J. Walker
was orphaned by six, married
by fourteen, and widowed by
twenty. Penniless and a single
mother, she began washing
laundry for cash.
Madam C.J. Walker
other inventions and held a
total of 87 patents.
The media at the time
dubbed Margaret “Lady
Edison”. At first, the nickname
was cute but somewhat
demeaning: who was this
A Newspaper In Education Supplement to The Washington Times
could make these square
bottomed paper bags because
clearly this was a better, more
useful design. She watched
the machinery work and
adapted the machines that
she had seen, successfully
folding flat bottom paper
bags by machine. With
absolutely no engineering
background, Margaret Knight
had succeeded where many
men before her had failed.
When Madam C.J. Walker
was about 30 years old, she
discovered that, adding insult
to injury, her hair was falling
out. Then one night, her
fortunes changed. According
to the story she would tell her
customers later, Madam C.J.
Walker had a dream in which
a tall African man came to
her and gave her an entire
recipe for a compound that
would restore her hair. In the
morning, she woke up and
she immediately set to work
trying to follow his directions.
When she eventually did
manage to get a compound
that worked, she tried it on
herself, and she discovered
that her hair was growing in
beautifully.
Some historians question
whether Madam C.J. Walker’s
concoction really came to
her in a dream. Nobody can
know at this point whether
she really did have a dream
or whether she told other
people that she had a dream
to downplay the role of her
own ingenuity in creating
this invention. Women at
the time were not really
supposed to be inventive and
creative. And, perhaps, it
was just easier for her to go
around telling other people
that the idea had come from
somewhere outside of her,
rather than from her own
hard work and perseverance.
Either way, “Madam C.J.
Walker’s Wonderful Hair
Grower” was such a success
that it made her the first
African-American female
millionaire. When Walker
died in 1919, she left behind a
nationwide corporation that
not only sold her products,
but also owed a chain of
beauty schools and employed
over 3,000 people.
The Sewing
Machine and
Other Inventions
Another true Lady Edison,
Beulah Louise Henry didn’t
just create the bobbin-less
sewing machine. She received
her first patent at age 25 for
a vacuum ice cream freezer.
This prolific woman also
invented over 100 other
devices including a pump to
inflate footballs, a doll with
eyes that could change color
and blink, and a typewriter
that made copies.
Mary Walton
In the second half of the
19th century, the industrial
Monday, September 21, 2009 / PAGE Madam C.J. Walker House
Beulah Louise Henry
An Advertising Supplement to The Washington Times
Prince George’s County
wooden channel lined with
cotton and filled with sand.
In the decades that followed,
women inventors received
patents for other railway
improvements including a
new way to construct tracks, a
new type of railcar axel, and a
railroad-crossing gate.
Mary Engle Pennington
revolution transformed
America. The population
of cities swelled. An
intimidating wave of new
technology bombarded those
who left behind frontiers
and farmland for this
modern urban environment.
But, women inventors saw
opportunities.
As a matter of fact, the pace
with which women invented
actually seems to pick up.
Women were not interested
in being left behind. They
were interested in finding out
more about machines, about
engines, about all sorts of
devices.
But despite these innovations,
recognition and respect
for women inventors was
rare and discrimination
was rampant. One woman
chemist, who would go on
to create another important
railway invention, was well
aware of this and decided to
conceal her true identity.
Mary Engle Pennington was
one of several women who
felt that her gender would be
a severe handicap in the field
that she wanted to enter. She
had studied at the University
of Pennsylvania, but because
she was a woman, she was
not initially awarded the
degree in chemistry she had
Nowhere was this interest
more piqued than in the field
of transportation.
PAGE / Wednesday, April 23,2008
Trains were a blessing and
a curse. They stitched the
country together, and made
it run more efficiently, but, as
they wove their way into the
nation’s cities, they choked
the air with smoke, smog and
noise.
In 1879, New Yorker Mary
Walton was determined to
do something about it. She
had the misfortune to live
close to the elevated tracks.
The amount of smoke put
out by those railroad trains
and the noise of the trains as
they passed by was something
awful. So Mary invented a
system to pass a locomotive’s
smoke through a water filter
and she came up with a way
to deaden elevated railway’s
noise by fitting the track in a
Martha Coston
earned, only receiving a
“certificate of proficiency.”
Nonetheless, she persevered
and eventually earned a PhD.
When she sought a job at the
Department of Agriculture
in 1907, she applied and took
the position under the name
M.E. Pennington, hoping that
the use of her initials would
allow officials to assume
she was a man. The higherups in the Department of
Agriculture finally realized
that M.E. Pennington was
a woman only after she
was given a promotion. By
her merits alone, she had
become the first chief of the
U.S. food research lab. Later,
Mary Engle Pennington
revolutionized the nation’s
food industry by inventing
the first refrigerated railway
car, making it possible for
perishables to travel across
the country.
Sometimes ordinary
observations led to big
ideas. One such moment of
inspiration came to Mary
Anderson on a snowy day in
the late 1890’s while riding
a streetcar in New York City.
She noticed the snow was
blocking the driver’s view,
and his only solution was to
reach outside and wipe it off
with his hand.
She thought, “Why is he
doing that? Why can’t there
be a lever on the inside that
moves an arm on the outside
that swishes off all the snow?”
And reportedly she said
this out loud, and the male
passengers around her said,
“Oh, it’s been tried many
times. People have thought
of it, can’t be done.”
That didn’t stop Mary. She
was convinced it could be
done and came up with a
new invention. It was handoperated from the inside.
The driver would move the
handle, it would swish the
wiper on the outside, and it
worked wonderfully. Mary
received a patent in 1903,
but still couldn’t sell this
futuristic gadget later called a
windshield wiper.
Many people believe that
Mary Anderson’s windshield
wiper invention would never
catch on because of the
distraction to the driver of
the windshield wipers going
swish, swish, swish. Ahead of
her time, Mary never earned
a penny from her invention.
Later, in 1916, an automatic
version of Mary’s invention
would become a standard
fixture on automobiles
and the number one safety
feature.
Wartime
Inventions
Wartime presents special
opportunities for inventors
seeking to help their nation.
On the home front and in
the battlefield, inventing
women have made significant
contributions to war efforts.
Just before the Civil War,
Martha Coston watched
her husband develop a flare
which would help ships at
sea locate each other, as well
as shipwreck victims. But
before he had the chance to
complete the flare, he died.
His idea, however, did not die
with him. Martha took over,
looked at his outlines, looked
at his charts, looked at his
notes, and figured out a way
to fulfill his vision in a way
that would be commercially
successful.
Martha patented the
pyrotechnic signal flare in
1859. Two years later, after
war broke out between the
states, the U.S. Navy bought
the rights to this invention.
Mary’s signal flares would be
credited with winning battles
and saving lives.
Martha marketed later
versions of her flares, not only
to the U.S. Navy, but also to
other maritime organizations
around the world. Her efforts
made her a very wealthy
woman. She was not only an
inventor, but an entrepreneur.
She lobbied Congress and
traveled to England, founding
a firm to manufacture the
flares that prospered for
several decades.
As the inventive Martha
Coston proved, wartime
meant new opportunities
Hedy Lamarr
for women. During World
War II, the U.S. government
launched an all-out campaign
to encourage women to get
out of the home and into the
workplace, filling jobs left
vacant by the men who had
The campaign worked. Between 1940
and 1945, the number of women
in the workforce doubled - from 9
million to 18 million. One of the
great success stories of the World
War II, was chemist Gertrude Ellion,
who previously hadn’t been able to
land a job in her field because she
was female. But during the war
they needed her, and she seized the
opportunity. In her 40 years as a
research chemist, Gertrude Ellion held
45 patents and helped develop drugs
to fight leukemia, cancer and AIDS.
She won the Nobel Prize for medicine
in 1988 and was the first woman to
be inducted into the inventor’s hall of
fame.
One woman inventor who
contributed to the war effort was
famous before the war began. While
her innovation to help fight the Nazis
was little known at the time, she
was one of the era’s most popular
personalities — actress Hedy Lamarr.
What do frequency hopping and
a player piano have in common?
George thought that the holes in a
player piano’s music roll could be
used as a code. Instead of each hole
playing a note, it would represent a
different radio frequency. As the roll
“played”, a message sent through
this device would constantly change
frequency, or “hop”.
Only an identical roll at the receiving
end of the transmission, rolled in sync
with the sending machine, would be
able to decode the signal. This was a
way of preventing the enemy from
listening in on a transmission, because
they couldn’t know which frequency
would be hopped to next.
Hedy received a patent under her
married name, Markey, for the device
she designed with George in 1942.
Although frequency hopping is
commonly used today in cell phone
technology, the war department
rejected the idea. No one knows why,
but some historians have speculated
that it was because military leaders
Hedy Lamarr is best known as a
stunning starlet of early American
cinema. But she was more than just
a pretty face. Hedy came up with a
concept decades ahead of its time.
Originally from Vienna, Austria,
Hedy Lamarr was brought to the
U.S. by MGM studio head, Louis B.
Mayer. Even though she was one
of Hollywood’s biggest stars, when
World War II began, she wanted to
do her part. She hated Hitler and
everything he was doing to her
homeland and all of Europe.
Ragallo Wing
The U.S. government generally
did not hire women for top-secret
projects, but the combination of
the war, and some very new science,
changed that. The neutron was
discovered in 1932, so nuclear physics
as a discipline had only been around
for ten years. And the people who
knew anything about it were mostly
very young, including women. It’s
always been easier for women in
science to break into new disciplines,
because there isn’t a hardened
establishment.
Joan Hinton was typical of the
women who worked on the
Manhattan project. When the war
broke out, she was a graduate student
in physics at the University of
Wisconsin. She began noticing that
her fellow graduate students and their
Shien-Shiing Wu
just couldn’t get past the idea of a
player piano guiding torpedoes.
Some women’s involvement in the
war effort was critical, especially those
participating in one of the war’s most
significant efforts, the Manhattan
project. This was a national effort
during World War II to take the
recently discovered principles of
nuclear fission and turn them into a
usable weapon. Several women played
Lillian Galbreth
a significant role in this program.
equipment suddenly would disappear
from the campus. One day she got
a letter inviting her to join a secret
project in New Mexico. She went to
the library and got a book on New
Mexico. When she opened the book,
there on the page where you wrote
your name to check out the book were
the names of all her friends who had
disappeared.
Joan was taken to a remote army
base in Los Alamos. There she joined
a team of this country’s premiere
physicists, including Chien-Shiung
Wu, a remarkable Chinese-American
woman scientist who would go on to
create five inventions in experimental
atomic physics. Along with their
male counterparts, they built the first
reactor to use enriched uranium. On
July 16, 1945, all their hard work came
down to one moment, the first atomic
detonation. It went just at dawn. Joan
later described seeing the color of the
bomb rise up into the clouds and the
whole world turned light as day, and
then the mountains caught the sound
and reflected it back. And the whole
world just rumbled with sound.
Less than a month later, the United
States dropped the bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan soon
offered its unconditional surrender
and World War II finally came to an
end.
Monday, September 21, 2009 / PAGE In Vienna, Hedy had been married
to a munitions manufacturer. She
knew that torpedoes often missed
their targets and thought that if they
could be controlled by a radio signal,
their accuracy could be improved.
The problem was, radio signals
could be detected or jammed. So
Hedy came up with a concept called
spread spectrum communication
or ‘frequency hopping.’ Hedy had
the idea, but didn’t know how to
implement it. For that, she turned to
a friend, composer George Antheil.
They put their heads together
combining her idea of scrambling the
signals and his knowledge of music,
specifically the working of a player
piano.
A Newspaper In Education Supplement to The Washington Times
gone off to war.
A Newspaper In Education Supplement to The Washington Times
Inventions in
Post-War America
In post-war America, the inventions
kept coming and women played a role
not just in creations that could help
the military by in innovations that
made daily life easier, or more fun.
In aviation, Gertrude Rogallo, along
with her husband Francis, invented
a “flexible wing” kite. In 1948, they
adapted this wing for use in their
new invention, the hang glider. The
Rogallo’s tested their creation in a
homemade wind tunnel in their attic.
And in 1947, Alice King Chapman
gave test pilot Chuck Yeager the right
stuff when she designed the crash
helmet he wore when he broke the
sound barrier.
a chemist and went on to invent a
product no sofa or carpet should
live without – a stain repellent. Like
many great discoveries, this began
as an accident. Patsy was working as
a research chemist at 3M, focusing
on fluorchemical polymers. A latex
mixture she was working with spilled
on an assistant’s white canvas tennis
shoe. While they were trying to
clean up the spill, Patsy began asking
questions. She was curious. Why
wasn’t this substance beading up on
this shoe? Why couldn’t the substance
be washed off, even with solvent?
Their most important observation was
that on the area where the substance
As World War II came to a close,
workingwomen were expected to leave
their jobs and go back to the home.
Many of the gains that were made
during World War II by women in the
workforce were lost during the 1950s.
It was a time when the GIs came back
from Europe and Asia. They needed
jobs, and the women, typically, left
the factories. It was also a time when
there was a huge baby boom going
on. It was necessary for many of the
women to stay home and to raise their
families.
PAGE / Monday, September 21, 2009
However, it was no accident when
Bette Nesmith Graham invented
liquid paper. As an executive secretary
in the 1950s, Bette was responsible
for typing letters that looked neat
and professional. At that time, IBM
had created a new electric typewriter.
The problem was that the ribbon
for the electric typewriter smudged
and smeared whenever she tried to
erase an error. Bette took pride in
her work and knew that mistakes
were professionally unacceptable.
Not wanting to be forced to re-type
documents whenever a mistake was
made, she looked for another solution.
For her solution, Bette turned to
her hobby, painting. It occurred to
her that when she was painting on a
canvas, she could always paint over
her mistakes and fix her picture. Why
couldn’t she do that with her typing?
She mixed water-based white tempera
paint to a suitable texture, then used
a tiny paintbrush to paint out her
errors.
Bette’s creation worked so well that
her co-workers wanted it too. So
Bette put it in small bottles, called
it “Mistake Out” and sold it around
her office. After some experimenting
to improve the quality of the paint,
Bette decided to market her correction
fluid to the general public. In 1958,
she changed the product’s name from
“Mistake Out” to “Liquid Paper”
and launched a successful new
business. Two decades later, she sold
the company for almost 50 million
dollars.
But even women who went back into
the home continued to invent. Lillian
Gilbreth was not only the mother of
12 (as chronicled in “Cheaper by the
Dozen”), she was also the mother of
ergonomics, the science of creating
efficient products that are easy to use.
Using these principals, she invented
such practical household devices as
the electric hand mixer, the shelves
inside a refrigerator’s door and the
step-lid trashcan.
Women who wanted to continue
working in traditionally male jobs
faced tremendous societal pressure.
When Patsy Sherman was in high
school she was given a test intended
to help her find out what she was
suited to do with her life. She knew
that she wanted to be a scientist or
a dentist, but the test said that she
was well suited to be a housewife.
She demanded to take the boys’ test
instead. When she took that test, it
turned out she was well suited to be a
chemist.
Patsy fulfilled her dream of becoming
had spilt, the tennis shoe was now
resistant to staining. They tested the
chemical and tinkered around with
the formula, eventually coming up
with Scotchgard, a family of products
that repel stains.
In 1959, another woman would spawn
an empire with an invention that
would become an American icon. As a
young mother, Ruth Handler watched
her daughter Barbara dress up paper
teenage dolls instead of playing
with baby dolls. Later, Ruth told her
husband Elliot, who was co-owner of
a small toy company, about her idea
for an adult doll for girls.
Ruth Handler with Barbie Doll
The designers and marketers said,
“That’ll never sell. You can’t sell a
full-grown woman to little girls to play
with as a doll.”
For a time, Ruth abandoned her idea.
Then she saw a similar doll from
Europe. She again pushed for the
production of her doll, which she
named after her daughter, “Barbie”.
Elliot’s company, Mattel, released the
Barbie doll to mixed reaction. Half
of their toy-store buyers wouldn’t
Stephanie K. Wolek
touch the grown-up doll, but the
rest decided to give Barbie a chance.
The doll proved an instant success,
flying off the shelves. It took Mattel
three years to produce enough of
the popular dolls to catch up with
demand. In time, Barbie was joined
by friends, including a boyfriend, Ken,
named after Ruth’s son.
Within five years, Mattel joined
the ranks of the U.S. Fortune 500
companies, thanks to an inventive
woman who pushed to see her
idea make it to market. But Ruth’s
creativity would ultimately serve
a more serious purpose. Ten years
later, Ruth was diagnosed with
breast cancer. After undergoing
a mastectomy, she searched for a
prosthesis, something to wear under
her clothes to replace the breast that
had been removed. All that were
available were uncomfortable lumps
of plastic, which didn’t look or feel like
real breasts. Ruth invented something
better, which was sold under the
name Nearly Me. The prosthesis she
invented felt like a real breast. They
could be bought in different sizes
and shapes, suitable for a right and
left, choices not available with the
products then available. Not only did
‘Nearly Me’ change the way future
prostheses would be made, it gave
Inventions by Women
Increase
Over the last century, the percentage
of patents awarded to women has
increased from a mere one percent
to ten percent. Over the past fifty
years, the majority of those patents
have been in the fields of science and
technology.
One of the pioneers has been physicist
Pat Wiener. For her, problem solving
is a way of life.
“Solving a problem is like taking a
gray, gray cloud [from] over your
head,” Pat has said. “I love my head
to feel totally clear. When I get up in
the morning, I want to sing. I want
my head to sing for me. And basically,
everybody said I was very qualified.
Then some guy comes up and says, we
can’t hire you. And I said why? And
they said because you are going to
have to be on the sixth floor. We have
no bathrooms for women engineers
on the sixth floor. Just for women
secretaries. And I looked at him, and
I said, well, I don’t mind sharing a
bathroom with the secretaries. And
all of a sudden, they said, oh, we can’t
do this. And I went home, and I told
my husband this. And he roared. He
absolutely couldn’t believe that I was
so naive not to understand what was
going on.”
Today Pat has her own company and
continues to invent. Her latest and
possibly most important technology
involves advances in fiber optics and
electronic textiles. These advances are
so revolutionary they have created a
whole new field.
Mars Pathfinder Rover
Pat has worked for high-tech
companies like Xerox, where she
helped develop the all-in-one fax/
scanner/copier/printer.
But along the way, she has faced her
share of obstacles.
“When I was young, I went out for a
job,” she recalled. “I was walking in
there, and I had the interviews, and
Pat’s newest creation, electronic
textiles, or e-textiles, are fiber optic
materials that can be woven into a
car seat allowing it to detect the size
and weight of a passenger. If the car’s
airbag is deployed in a collision, the
strength and speed of its release can
be adjusted using this information,
lessening the chance of injury.
For many women inventors, it takes
more than a good idea. It also takes
persistence. If not for her persistence
in 1971, Stephanie Kwolek may never
Donna Shirley was the original leader
of the team that designed and built
the Mars Pathfinder Rover.
Ellen Ochoa
have discovered the revolutionary lifesaving material called Kevlar. She was
the only female scientist in Dupont,
at the time. She was assigned to find
a stiff chain polymer. She made
a solution that she thought could
be spun into fiber that would have
some promising qualities. When she
brought it to the technician, to put in
a spinnerette, he refused. Although
she probably outranked him as a
scientist, he thought that her material
looked cloudy, as if there was solid
material in it. He didn’t think she
had strained it sufficiently. Over the
next several weeks, Stephanie’s result
was the same time and time again.
Eventually, the technician relented
and spun the material into fiber.
When the fiber came back from the
testing lab, it was determined that
it was five times stronger than steel.
Stephanie’s first thought was probably
that the lab had mad a mistake.
How could a fiber be stronger than
steel? But repeated testing revealed
this result was true. Stephanie had
discovered an extremely lightweight,
incredibly strong material.
Used in bulletproof vests for law
enforcement, Kevlar has saved
thousands of lives. Weighing five
times less than an old steel-plated flak
vest that couldn’t stop a bullet, the
quarter-inch thick Kevlar vest can.
Used in firefighters’ boots and gloves,
Kevlar is two and a half times more
cut resistant than leather and can
withstand temperatures up to 900
degrees Fahrenheit. It is also used in
a wide variety of products: sporting
equipment, skis, bicycle tires, racing
sails, motorcycle safety clothing, for
snare drum heads, or as a coating for
fiber optic lines.
Ellen Ochoa is an inventor who is
also an astronaut. Ellen has flown
four space shuttle missions for NASA,
including two that fulfilled her dream
of helping to build the international
space station. The first Hispanic
female to become an astronaut, she
goes to schools and talks to kids
all the time about their capabilities
and about what they can do and
about the future. Yet, at the same,
she’s living the future. Holding three
patents for designing optical analysis
systems, Ellen is as thrilled to be in
space, as she is to invent something.
“I just like the idea of being able to
define a problem and work on it and
see what I can come up with,” she
explains. “When we actually did get a
patent and it in fact was licensed to a
company it was exciting. Because that
meant someone else was interested in
the work that I had been doing.”
As a new century begins, the
opportunities for future ‘mothers of
invention’ seem greater than ever.
New challenges lie ahead. And new
things will need to be invented.
Women have made incredible strides
in inventions over the last 200 years.
They have gone from being virtually
unheard-of to being credited for a
sprinkling of inventions, to running
the gamut of all types of inventions
in all types of areas. More and more,
the playing field for women inventors
competing with men has been leveled
— not only in terms of the law, but
also in terms of assumption. Our
society can admire and respect the
work that women have done because
it has become more visible and
prominent.
When we look at children growing
up, it’s critical that we teach them that
they’re all inventors. There’s no limit
to the problems that these mothers
– and fathers – of invention could
solve.
Monday, September 21, 2009 / PAGE solving the problem, inventing
something new, makes that happen.
Today, some women inventors are
finding that the sky is no limit.
These women are at the vanguard of
America’s space program.
A Newspaper In Education Supplement to The Washington Times
women renewed confidence. One of
Ruth’s main goals in life was to help
women reach their potential.