March 10, 2023 – Theme Week Day 5

We’re on our final day of our theme week on Things You Didn’t Know Were Invented by Women! Today we’re talking about an invention that we all use regularly – the windshield wiper! It was invented by Mary Elizabeth Anderson after a visit to New York City in 1902 where she saw a trolley car driver struggling to keep his front window clean. To clear it, the driver had to open the window (leaving him and the passengers exposed to the elements), lean out of the vehicle, or stop the car to go outside and wipe the windshield clean. She knew there must be a better way, and she started sketching her idea right then and there on the trolley car. She wasn’t an engineer, but she was an entrepreneur. So she worked with a designer and a local company to produce a working model. In 1903, she was granted a 17-year patent for her invention. It consisted of a lever inside the vehicle that controlled a spring-loaded rubber blade on the outside of the windshield. Similar devices had been made, but Anderson’s was the first one that was actually effective. Unfortunately, she was a little ahead of her time. When she got her patent, cars weren’t very popular. So when she tried to sell the rights to her invention, she was turned down as no one saw the value in it. But by 1913, the automobile manufacturing business was thriving, and in 1922 Cadillac became the first manufacturer to adopt windshield wipers as standard equipment. Because her patent expired in 1920, Anderson never profited from her invention. It’s only in recent years that her impact on the auto industry has been recognized. In 2011, nearly 60 years after her death, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Learn more here.