10 Groundbreaking Inventions by Women

By the end of the 20th century, a mere 10% of patents were granted to women inventors [source: Santhanam]. Scanning through historical records of groundbreaking inventions, women's names are conspicuously absent. This isn't due to a lack of creativity or ingenuity but rather the systemic barriers women faced in gaining recognition for their contributions.

Historically, innovations by women were often credited to men. Consider Sybilla Righton Masters, a colonial-era woman who, inspired by Native American techniques, devised a novel method for processing corn into cornmeal. When she sought a patent in England, legal restrictions prevented women from owning property, including intellectual property. Instead, the patent was issued in her husband's name in 1715.

Centuries ago, property laws barred many women from securing patents for their inventions. Additionally, women rarely had access to technical education, which was essential for transforming ideas into tangible products. Many faced bias and mockery when seeking assistance from men to bring their ideas to life. Furthermore, inventions aimed at improving household life were often dismissed as trivial and unworthy of recognition.

Mary Dixon Kies made history as the first American woman to secure a patent under her own name. In 1809, she revolutionized the hat-making industry by inventing a technique to weave straw, significantly boosting New England's economy. By obtaining this patent, Kies paved the way for future female inventors to claim rightful credit for their innovations. Let’s explore a variety of groundbreaking inventions created by women.

15: Home Security System

Marie Van Brittan Brown, an African American woman from Queens, New York, identified a pressing need for enhanced security in her community during the 1960s. Dissatisfied with the slow police response times, she collaborated with her husband, Albert Brown, to create the first home security system. Their invention was revolutionary, featuring peepholes, a movable camera, monitors, and a two-way microphone. The camera could adjust to different heights, allowing residents to see visitors through multiple peepholes. Once the visitor was identified, the resident could communicate via the microphone or unlock the door remotely.

Although Brown’s system may seem standard today, it was a game-changer in the 1960s. The ability to visually verify a visitor’s identity without opening the door introduced a new era of safety and convenience. Brown’s pioneering work laid the foundation for modern home security systems. It’s crucial to recognize and honor women like Brown, whose inventive solutions to real-world challenges have shaped the evolution of home security technology.

14: Ice Cream Maker

Nancy Johnson, an American inventor, laid the groundwork for modern ice cream makers in the early 19th century. In 1843, she patented a hand-cranked ice cream freezer, which featured a crank mechanism inside a container surrounded by ice and salt. This design ensured consistent agitation of the ice cream mixture, preventing large ice crystals and resulting in a smoother, creamier texture. Before Johnson's invention, ice cream production was arduous and often yielded a grainy product. Her innovation simplified the process and played a pivotal role in popularizing ice cream with its refined quality.

13: The Landlord's Game

Elizabeth Magie developed The Landlord's Game, a board game aimed at exposing and criticizing the monopolistic nature of the real estate market. More than just entertainment, her invention was a social commentary on how landlords profited while tenants struggled. Magie secured a patent for her game in 1904 and self-published it in 1906. The game included properties that could be bought and rented, with players navigating the board, paying fees, and encountering financial challenges, mirroring the mechanics of later property-trading games.

In the 1930s, a strikingly similar game, Monopoly, rose to prominence. Charles Darrow, often wrongly credited as its sole creator, adapted and commercialized the game, selling it to Parker Brothers. By 1935, Monopoly was being mass-produced and became a worldwide sensation. While Darrow and Parker Brothers reaped substantial profits, Magie's pivotal role in the game's creation went largely unnoticed until historians recently highlighted her foundational contributions.

12: Life Raft

Maria Beasley, an American inventor, transformed maritime safety in 1882 with her enhanced life raft design. Before her innovation, life rafts were basic, unreliable, and lacked critical safety features. Beasley's version featured a robust frame, guard rails, and a foldable design, overcoming the shortcomings of earlier models. This advancement ensured safer evacuations for passengers, significantly reducing maritime fatalities and saving numerous lives over time.

Beasley's redesign was far from a simple adjustment. She reimagined the life raft to emphasize functionality and safety. While life rafts are often seen as basic floating devices, Beasley's creation was a technical marvel for its era, incorporating features that improved durability and effectiveness. She patented her design and capitalized on its commercial appeal, leading to its widespread use on ships globally. Her life rafts gained international demand, underscoring her monumental impact on maritime safety worldwide.

11: Foot Pedal Trash Can

The foot pedal trash can, a common yet ingenious household and office item, was created in the early 20th century by Lillian Moller Gilbreth, a leading industrial engineer. This hands-free design, operated by a foot pedal at the base, enabled users to discard waste without touching the lid, significantly enhancing hygiene and minimizing germ transmission.

Although the foot pedal trash can is among Gilbreth's most famous inventions, her work extended to numerous advancements in ergonomics and home appliances. As one of the few female inventors of her time, Gilbreth demonstrated a remarkable talent for analyzing everyday tasks and optimizing tools and processes for greater efficiency. Her innovative approach merged industrial and domestic spheres, applying scientific management principles to household chores and making daily life more streamlined.

10: Circular Saw

In the late 18th century, the Shakers, a religious group known for their communal living, gender equality, and dedication to labor, gained prominence. Tabitha Babbitt, a weaver in a Massachusetts Shaker community, sought to ease the burden of her fellow members in 1810. She noticed men using a pit saw, a two-handled tool requiring two people to operate, which only cut wood on the forward stroke, wasting energy on the return motion. To address this inefficiency, Babbitt designed a prototype of the circular saw by attaching a circular blade to her spinning wheel, ensuring every movement was productive. Due to Shaker beliefs, she never patented her groundbreaking invention.

9: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Many beloved recipes owe their existence to kitchen accidents, but one stands out as both iconic and delectable: the chocolate chip cookie. Ruth Wakefield, a dietitian and food lecturer, and her husband purchased an old toll house near Boston. Originally, toll houses served as stops for travelers to pay tolls, eat, and tend to their horses. The Wakefields transformed the toll house into an inn with a restaurant, where this iconic treat was born.

In 1930, while preparing Butter Drop Do cookies for her guests at the Toll House Inn, Ruth Wakefield faced a shortage of baker's chocolate. She improvised by breaking a Nestle chocolate bar into pieces and adding them to the dough, expecting the chocolate to melt. Instead, the chunks retained their shape, giving birth to the now-iconic chocolate chip cookie.

Nestle observed a surge in chocolate bar sales in Wakefield's region and approached her after her cookie gained popularity among travelers. Following her suggestion, Nestle began scoring their chocolate bars for easier breaking. By 1939, they launched Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, featuring Wakefield's recipe on the packaging. In return, she received a lifetime supply of chocolate.

8: Liquid Paper

Bette Nesmith Graham, despite being a high school dropout and an average typist, rose to become the executive secretary for the chairman of Texas Bank and Trust in the 1950s. The introduction of electric typewriters posed a challenge, as their carbon ribbons made error correction nearly impossible, often forcing secretaries to retype entire pages.

Inspired by painters covering mistakes on a bank window display, Graham devised a solution for her typing errors. Using her blender, she created a water-based tempera paint mixed with dye matching her company's stationery. She applied it with a fine brush to correct mistakes, and soon, her colleagues demanded the product. Graham continued producing it in her kitchen, laying the foundation for Liquid Paper.

Graham was dismissed from her job after mistakenly labeling her product "Mistake Out" on the bank's letterhead. During her unemployment, she focused on refining her invention, renaming it Liquid Paper, and securing a patent in 1958. The product became essential in the pre-computer era. In 1979, Nesmith sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for $47.5 million. Fun fact: Her son, Mike, was a member of the 1960s band The Monkees.

7: The Compiler and COBOL Computer Language

While figures like Charles Babbage and Bill Gates dominate discussions of computer advancements, Admiral Grace Hopper's contributions are equally significant. Joining the military in 1943, she worked at Harvard University on IBM's Harvard Mark I, the first large-scale computer in the U.S.

As the third person to program the Harvard Mark I, Hopper authored an operations manual that guided future programmers. In the 1950s, she developed the compiler, a tool that converted English commands into computer code, simplifying programming and reducing errors. Her Flow-Matic compiler was instrumental in programming UNIVAC I and II, the first commercially available computers.

Admiral Hopper also led the creation of the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), one of the earliest computer programming languages. Her contributions to computer science earned her numerous accolades, including the distinction of having a U.S. Navy ship named in her honor.

6: Colored Flare System

After being widowed at 21 in 1847, Martha Coston faced the challenge of supporting her four children. While reviewing her late husband's notebooks, she discovered plans for a flare system designed for nighttime ship communication. Despite initial testing failures, Coston remained determined to bring the idea to life.

Coston spent a decade refining her husband's design for a colored flare system. She sought advice from scientists and military experts but struggled to create flares that were both bright and durable yet easy to deploy. Inspiration struck during a fireworks display with her children, leading her to incorporate pyrotechnic techniques into her design. The U.S. Navy eventually adopted her system, which played a crucial role during the Civil War.

Despite her success, the flare system did not provide financial stability for Coston. She supplied 1.2 million flares to the Navy at cost during the Civil War but was paid only $15,000 of the $120,000 owed. In her autobiography, Coston attributed this injustice to gender bias [source: Pilato].

5: The Square-Bottomed Paper Bag

Margaret Knight didn't create the first paper bag, but early versions were impractical for carrying items, resembling envelopes more than bags. Knight, while employed at the Columbia Paper Bag Company, envisioned a square-bottomed design that would distribute weight evenly, making the bags more functional and paving the way for their widespread use in grocery stores.

In 1870, Knight developed a wooden machine to cut, fold, and glue square bottoms onto paper bags. While creating an iron prototype for her patent application, she discovered her design had been stolen by Charles Annan, who had seen her wooden machine earlier. Annan argued that a woman couldn't design such a complex device, but Knight proved her ownership with detailed notes and sketches, securing the patent in 1871.

Knight's ingenuity wasn't limited to paper bags. At just 12 years old, she invented a stop-motion device that halted industrial machinery if an obstruction was detected, preventing numerous injuries. Over her lifetime, Knight secured more than 20 patents for her innovations.

4: Dishwasher

Contrary to popular belief, the first dishwasher wasn't invented by someone tired of scrubbing dishes. Josephine Cochrane, who patented the first commercially viable dishwasher, was motivated by her frustration with servants damaging her cherished heirloom china after dinner parties.

Cochrane, a socialite who enjoyed hosting, faced significant debt after her husband's death in 1883. Instead of selling her prized china, she focused on creating a machine to wash it safely. Her invention used high-pressure water directed at a wire rack of dishes, earning her a patent in 1886.

Cochanne found promoting her invention more challenging than creating it. Initially, the dishwasher struggled with individual consumers due to the lack of hot water heaters in many homes and reluctance to pay for a task traditionally done for free. Undeterred, Cochrane targeted hotels and restaurants, emphasizing the machine's ability to replace manual labor. Over time, as more women entered the workforce, households increasingly adopted the dishwasher.

3: Windshield Wiper

In the early 20th century, Mary Anderson visited New York City for the first time. The city she encountered was vastly different from today's bustling metropolis. Cars were a rarity, and the streets lacked the chaos of modern traffic. During her trip, Anderson rode a trolley through the snow-covered city, sparking an idea that would revolutionize automobiles.

Anderson observed that trolley drivers had to frequently stop to clear snow from their windshields. At the time, drivers accepted poor visibility as an unavoidable challenge. Upon returning home, Anderson designed a windshield-cleaning device featuring a squeegee on a spindle, operated by a handle inside the vehicle. Drivers could easily clear the windshield by pulling the handle. Anderson patented her invention in 1903, and within a decade, her windshield wipers became a standard feature on thousands of cars.

2: Nystatin

While long-distance romantic relationships often face challenges, Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen demonstrated that professional collaborations across distances can lead to groundbreaking achievements. Both worked for the New York State Department of Health in the 1940s, with Hazen in New York City and Brown in Albany. Despite the physical separation, they co-developed the first effective antifungal medication.

Hazen tested soil samples in New York City to identify organisms that reacted to fungi. Promising samples were mailed to Brown in Albany, who isolated the active components. These extracts were then sent back to Hazen for further testing against fungi. If the substance proved effective and safe, it underwent toxicity evaluation. After years of research, they discovered Nystatin in 1950, named after New York state. This drug, sold under various brand names, treats fungal infections in the skin, vagina, and intestines, and has even been used to combat Dutch elm disease and mold on artwork.

1: Kevlar

Stephanie Kwolek initially joined DuPont in 1946 as a temporary job to save money for medical school. By 1964, she was still at DuPont, focusing on transforming polymers into high-strength synthetic fibers. Her research involved polymers with rod-like molecules that aligned uniformly, which she believed would enhance the material's strength.

Unlike polymers with disorganized molecular bundles, Kwolek hypothesized that the aligned molecules would create a stronger material. However, these polymers were challenging to dissolve into a testable solution. After successfully preparing a unique solution with the rod-like molecules, she faced resistance from the spinneret operator, who feared the solution would damage the machine.

Kwolek persisted, and the spinneret produced a fiber with strength comparable to steel on an ounce-for-ounce basis. This material, named Kevlar, became integral in manufacturing skis, radial tires, brake pads, suspension bridge cables, helmets, and outdoor gear. Most importantly, Kevlar is used in bulletproof vests, meaning Kwolek, though she never attended medical school, saved countless lives through her invention.