Top 10 Things Invented by Women

Top 10 Things Invented by Women

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Our lives are easier because of these members of the fairer sex. Join MsMojo as we count down our picks for Top 10 Things Invented by Women. For this list, we’ve chosen inventions that have done their part to shape the modern world. A woman must have been integral in the construction and/or development of each product, and said products have been ranked according to their originality, technological innovation, and human impact.

The flat-bottomed paper bag is a grocery store icon, and its origins can be traced back to an innovative woman named Margaret E. Knight. Knight was born in Maine in 1838, and soon began an industrial life that would inform her creations. Leaving school at age 12, she worked in various mills and factories before landing at a cotton mill. It was there that she noticed the impracticality of paper bags, and decided that a flat bottom would surely ease the packing process. So she went to work on the fruitful idea, inventing a machine that turned irksome paper bags into convenient square-based receptacles. Knight invented so many items in her lifetime, including a stop-motion device for looms, that she was called “the lady Edison” by some media outlets.

#9: Modern Diaper

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What’s worse than changing a diaper? Having to use the same one over and over again. That was the case before two women came along and revolutionized the rearing process. In the 1940s, the American Marion Donovan fastened part of a shower curtain to a diaper and made the first waterproof version of its kind. The rights of her “Boater” diaper cover with snap fasteners, along with several other patents, were ultimately sold for $1 million. During the same decade, a UK housewife named Valerie Hunter Gordon developed disposable diapers in two-part contraptions with removable cellulose pads and an outer plastic garment, which she patented in 1949. Using innovations from both designs, the modern diaper was created and soon monopolized the childcare market. As demonstrated by Apgar score, which was invented by anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar in 1952 to record the health of newborns, female inventors revolutionized childcare.

#8: Non-Reflective Glass [aka ‘Invisible’ Glass]

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Katharine Burr Blodgett, a physicist from New York, developed what is known as “invisible” glass in late 1930s. The General Electric employee designed the product by covering glass in a type of material called barium stearate. The film covered the glass with 44 monomolecular layers but still allowed 99% of light to pass through it, thus creating a non-reflective and nearly invisible compound. This was a monumental breakthrough, and the miracle glass coating – which would come to be known as Langmuir-Blodgett film - was quickly instituted on a large scale. After becoming a coveted product in the movie industry, notably used in “Gone with the Wind”, the invisible glass was also utilized in submarine periscopes and spy plane cameras during World War II. Today, non-reflective glass is used in everything from eyeglasses to museum displays.

The DuPont Company has gotten a bad rap in recent years thanks to John E. du Pont’s murder conviction and the movie based around those events, but one should not overlook its centuries of technological innovation. A prime example is the creation of Kevlar, which is one of the toughest materials ever synthesized. It was a DuPont chemist named Stephanie Kwolek who developed the durable fiber in 1965. The compound was created when researching threading for car tires, and Kwolek’s solution was so incredible that it transcended the confines of vehicle mobilization. Kevlar is probably best known for its use in bulletproof armor, but its other applications range from hockey sticks to loudspeakers and everything in between. Kwolek received a patent for her invention in 1966.

Refrigeration systems were in place before Florence Parpart won her 1914 patent, but her design was the first to be commercially viable. Parpart greatly improved on the previous refrigeration patent, and created a highly useful and practical appliance for anyone with electricity. It is said that Parpart’s refrigerators replaced the icebox, which was simply an insulated box with a slab of ice, as the foremost food storage unit. Speaking of household appliances, it was a woman named Josephine Cochrane who made hand washing dishes obsolete with her invention of the automatic dishwasher, which she patented in the mid 1880s, and which went on to become the first commercial successful device of its kind. These two women made life so much easier.

Hedy Lamarr, an early movie star and sex symbol, lived a double life as a technological wizard. The Austria-born starlet— marketed as “the world’s most beautiful woman”— teamed with composer George Antheil to create a radio guiding system for torpedoes. This system led to what is now called spread-spectrum communication technology, and was developed by Lamarr and co. to protect missiles from enemy interference. The frequency-hopping technology was so advanced that it was not used by the military until decades later, but missiles were the smallest of possible applications, because when we say it is now used in everything - we mean everything. Lamarr’s invention is the basis for WiFi, GPS and other wireless technologies; in other words, it runs our world.

A microelectrode is a tiny metal device that is used to gauge the electrical properties of nervous tissue. Inserted into a cell, it stimulates and records electrical activity, and determines the energy output of certain biological systems. It was a physiologist named Ida Henrietta Hyde who developed the microelectrode in 1921. She used glass micropipettes to reach within the tissue of the cell, install the electrode, and remove the pipette without any harm done to the cell – and at the time, this was a groundbreaking procedure in neurophysiology. Today, microelectrodes are the key elements in the study of electrophysiology, and it’s Hyde who paved the way.

#3: Medical Syringe

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Syringes were complicated devices that were wielded like jackhammers in the 1800s. The modern syringe is so far removed from those clunky contraptions, and it was Letitia Mumford Geer who bridged the gap between the two. Geer invented the one-handed medical syringe in 1890s, with the patent being granted to her before the end of that decade. It goes without saying that Geer improved medical care with her handy design, and soon hospitals were using them exclusively. Little is known about her life outside of the patent, but that’s more than enough to endure her legacy as an innovator.

A team of Harvard researchers created one of the first electromechanical computers in the late 1930s-early 1940s. Helmed by Howard Aiken, the team included a young woman named Grace Hopper, who became one of the world’s preeminent computer scientists. Hopper helped design the Mark I’s first programs, which calculated large sums that could not be processed by the human mind. The program was used for all sorts of important work, including calculations for the Manhattan Project. As one of the first of its kind developed, the Mark I – also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator - started a computing revolution, the result of which you can see on your screen. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions: • Life Raft Maria Beasley • Coffee Filter Melitta Bentz • Fire Escape Anna Connelly • Modern Bra Caresse Crosby • Windshield Wiper Mary Anderson

While Grace Hopper programmed one of the first electromechanical computers, Ada Lovelace made the first computer program—ever. Lovelace was a mathematician from London who worked with Charles Babbage on the first mechanical computer. This computer was called the Analytical Engine and was first proposed in the 1830s. Lovelace spent considerable time devising uses for the machine, and eventually compiled a series of notes on which the computer could be run. The result is what is now considered the first computer algorithm. Because of this breakthrough, Lovelace is considered history’s first computer programmer, and essentially the fire starter in an electronically dark world. Do you agree with our list? What’s your favorite product by a female inventor? For more technological Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to MsMojo.