10 Things You Didn’t Know Were Invented By Women

Author Nancy Brooks // Country Writer, Beasley Media Group

March 22nd, 2021 12:00 AM

As we celebrate women in the month of March, we take a look at 10 things that were actually invented by women.

• Dishwasher – 1872 – Josephine Cochran

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  Though other prototypes existed, it took a woman's common sense to create a dishwasher that actually cleaned the dishes. Cochran's design was the first that used water pressure rather than scrubbers to remove debris.

• Aquarium – 1832 – Jeanne Villepreux-Power

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  A French naturalist, Villepreux-Power was trying to prove that the paper nautilus does not take discarded shells from other organisms, but rather grows its own shell. To observe the creature for an extended period of time and to study marine life, she invented a glass aquarium.

• Ice cream maker – 1843 – Nancy Johnson

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  Johnson had her priorities straight before freezers were even invented. She created a double-cylinder hand-crank ice cream machine. It could create two flavors that are frozen at the same time but separately.
• Globes – 1875 – Ellen Fitz

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  Fitz was a tutor in Canada when she designed a globe mount that could display the earth's daily rotation in relation to the path of the sun not only by day and night but also throughout the year.

• Life raft – 1882 – Maria Beasley

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  Though Beasley had already made a fortune on a barrel-hooping machine patent, this serial inventor went on to design an improved life raft with guard rails that was fireproof and foldable for easy storage. Her life rafts were used on the Titanic and saved over 700 lives.

• Fire escape – 1887 – Anna Connelly

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  Tenement fires were much more deadly before Connelly invented an external metal staircase, the very first fire escape. In addition to saving lives, her invention also precipitated one of the first New York City building codes, which required residential buildings to have a secondary means of escape for emergencies.
• Windshield wiper – 1903 – Mary Anderson

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  After receiving a patent in 1903, Anderson tried to sell her new windshield cleaning device to a manufacturer, who refused, stating that her invention lacked practical value. Her windshield wipers failed to take off before her patent expired and it was 10 years before a similar device became standard on cars.

• Coffee filter – 1908 – Melitta Benz

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  Pour-over coffee fans may be surprised to learn that the company Melitta isn't named after an Italian coffee maker. It's actually named after Melitta Bentz, a German entrepreneur who invented an easy, minimalist way to make coffee by placing it in a filter and pouring water over it.

• Central heating – 1919 – Alice Parker

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  Parker's revolutionary design for central heating, though never utilized, was the first that used natural gas, rather than wood, to heat a home.
• Wireless transmission technology – 1941 – Hedy Lamarr

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  During World War II, Lamarr, who also happened to be a movie star, created a frequency-hopping communication system that could guide torpedos without being detected. Her groundbreaking work paved the way for the modern invention of WiFi, GPS, and bluetooth.

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Author Nancy Brooks // Country Writer, Beasley Media Group

Category:

• 105.9 Kiss-FM
• Lifestyle
• Women's History Month

Tags:

Invented by women