Top 10 Women's Inventions That Were Credited to Men
We need to give credit where it's due! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the innovations of women who didn’t get the recognition they deserved … at least at first.
Transcript
00:00 "Two cups in the front, two loops in the back. How do they do it?"
00:05 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the innovations of women who
00:10 didn't get the recognition they deserved, at least at first. "And as we try to encourage
00:15 girls and boys to go into STEM, shouldn't we be telling them that the pioneers of STEM look like
00:20 them?" Number 10. Windshield wipers. Mary Anderson. Not only did she not get credit for her invention,
00:28 she didn't make a dime off of it. While touring New York City during wintry weather,
00:32 Anderson noticed that her driver had to stop and clean off the windshield with his hands.
00:36 This gave her the idea for her window cleaning device, an arm with a rubber blade that basically
00:41 works like a modern wiper. She patented it in 1903 but never found a buyer, and some people
00:47 believe it's because no one took her seriously. Instead, a company called Trico bought a wiper
00:52 design patented by John Jeppson in 1916 and went on to become one of the largest wiper manufacturers
00:57 in the world. "Well, a woman also invented the windshield wiper." "Which goes great with another
01:02 male invention, the car." Number 9. Monopoly. Lizzie McGee. An outspoken feminist and progressive,
01:10 McGee was ahead of her time. She invented the landlord's game as a tool to teach people about
01:16 the dangers of concentrating wealth in a few hands, and got a patent for it in 1904. "She wanted a
01:22 game that would teach people how awful it was to have a money-grubbing landlord who gouged you on
01:28 your rent." In the 30s, unemployed salesman Charles Darrow learned about the game from friends,
01:33 and began selling his own copies under the title Monopoly. He sold his design to Parker Brothers
01:39 in 1935, claiming it was his own invention. McGee was furious at Darrow's theft. She went to the
01:46 newspapers with her story, and Parker Brothers eventually bought her patent rights for a mere $500.
01:52 Darrow, on the other hand, went on to make millions in royalties. We don't blame McGee
01:57 for being angry. "Ironically, what happened was owning groups of land was glorified." "They
02:03 discovered the joy of bankrupting their family and friends rather than learning about financial
02:11 justice." Both the first woman and the first black American to earn a master's at the University of
02:19 Hawaii, Ball became a chemistry lecturer in 1915. At the time, people with leprosy were doomed to a
02:26 slow and painful death. The best treatment available was an oil made from a tree found
02:36 in India, but it didn't actually work very well. By modifying the compounds in the oil, Ball
02:42 developed an injectable version that revolutionized leprosy treatment. However, she died suddenly at
02:47 the age of 24 before she could publish her method. Her former advisor later published the work
03:04 without giving her credit and even named the technique after himself. Although a colleague
03:10 eventually tried to correct the record, Ball's contribution went mostly unrecognized for decades.
03:15 Mass-produced paper bags - Margaret E. Knight - probably use her invention at least once a week.
03:23 Back in the late 1800s, mass-produced bags were flimsy and couldn't stand upright.
03:27 Knight, who had started inventing things as a child, created a machine that produced sturdy,
03:32 flat-bottomed bags like those we use today. Machinist Charles Annan saw her design and
03:37 made the mistake of stealing it and filing for a patent himself. When Knight sued him,
03:42 Annan tried to argue that Knight couldn't have invented the machine because, quote,
03:45 "she could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities." Knight then presented the court with
03:50 pages of detailed blueprints, journals, and witnesses who confirmed she had been working
03:55 on the machine for years. The court ruled in her favor, and she got her patent.
04:00 And Margaret later went on to invent a paper bag maker, which had a flat bottom and is still used
04:10 today in our little brown bags that we might get at the pharmacy.
04:16 Number 6. The Modern Bra - Caress Crosby - This wardrobe staple has existed in some form for
04:23 thousands of years. Cross your heart, crosses over, lifts and separates to help you cross over
04:28 to a better figure. But corsets were basically the only option in the early 20th century. When
04:35 Crosby was only 19, she became frustrated with her bulky corset while dressing for a ball. Using two
04:40 handkerchiefs and a ribbon, she sewed a new garment that was light and comfortable. It immediately
04:45 became a hit among her friends. Crosby patented her design in 1914 and later founded the Fashion
04:51 Form Brassiere Company. However, her new husband Harry soon talked her out of pursuing her own
04:56 business, and she sold her patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for just $1,500. Warner
05:02 sales skyrocketed, and for years, few people associated Crosby's name with the invention of
05:07 the bra. Number 5. The Electric Computer - The ENIAC Programmers - During World War II,
05:20 the American army had to calculate thousands of missile trajectories using differential equations
05:26 that took hours to work by hand. These women programmed the Electronic Numerical Integrator
05:30 and Computer, or ENIAC, to do the math in just seconds. They worked completely from scratch,
05:46 with no instructions, no pre-existing programming languages, no precedent to help them. But their
05:52 contributions were ignored for decades. They weren't identified in publicity photos,
06:06 and weren't even invited to the 50th anniversary celebration of the ENIAC in the 90s.
06:11 It wasn't until historian Kathy Kleiman stumbled onto their story that they started to get the
06:15 recognition they deserved. Remember their names. Kathleen Antonelli, Jean Bartik, Betty Holberton,
06:30 Marlon Meltzer, Frances Spence, and Ruth Teitelbaum. Number 4. The Moon Landing Path -
06:35 Katherine Johnson - Her contributions to NASA and the field of space travel are almost
06:40 immeasurable. She not only plotted the trajectory for the moon landing, she also calculated Alan
06:46 Shepard's first spaceflight, a safe return path for the failed Apollo 13 mission, and more.
06:50 Johnson talked her way into meetings and onto projects that had previously included only men.
07:04 But it was standard practice at NASA, and pretty much everywhere else,
07:08 not to formally recognize the women computers who did most of the math.
07:11 Instead, the names of male engineers went onto the reports and into the history books.
07:17 It's partly thanks to the 2016 book and movie Hidden Figures that the work of Johnson and
07:21 others like her is finally being recognized. Number 3. The Computer Algorithm - Ada Lovelace
07:36 The daughter of a celebrated poet and a gifted intellectual,
07:40 it's no surprise that Lovelace had a brilliant mind. She loved mathematics and jumped at the
07:45 chance to work with Charles Babbage on his analytical engine, the precursor to the modern
07:50 computer. During their collaboration, she created a program to calculate Bernoulli numbers, a
07:55 sequence well-known in the field of analysis. That program is widely considered to be the first
08:00 computer algorithm. Throughout the 1900s, scholars argued that Lovelace wasn't sharp enough to write
08:14 such a program, and that it must have actually been Babbage's work. More recent research has
08:19 shown that not only did Lovelace write the program, she understood the computer's potential
08:24 to do much more than math, even better than Babbage himself. Number 2. The Wu Experiment -
08:30 Chen Sheng-Wu While working on the Manhattan Project,
08:34 she developed the process that made it possible to produce enough uranium to build a bomb. But it was
08:39 her 1956 experiment that earned Wu a place on our list. At the time, the law of conservation
08:45 of parity was accepted as fact. However, physicists Zheng Daoli and Chen Ningyang theorized that it
08:51 might not apply in all cases. They asked Wu to test their hypothesis, and she designed a complex
08:57 experiment that involved cooling radioactive isotopes to near absolute zero. She proved them
09:02 right, simultaneously paving the way for other major breakthroughs. Yang and Li got a Nobel
09:08 Prize, and Wu got nothing. But she would go on to earn many other honors throughout her
09:13 illustrious career. Before we unveil our top pick, here are some honorable mentions.
09:18 Disposable Diapers - Marion Donovan Male execs laughed at her in the 50s,
09:23 but Pamper started selling a similar design in 1961.
09:27 Computer Programming Language - Grace Hopper Men kept telling her that her ideas weren't
09:37 possible, and she kept proving them wrong. Photography Book - Anna Atkins
09:42 Henry Talbot usually gets the credit, but she finished her book eight months earlier than he did.
09:48 Hair Straightening Comb - Ada Harris This inventor and civil rights leader
09:52 was almost forgotten by history. The Field of Gynecology - Trota of Salerno
09:57 For centuries, people assumed her books on women's health were written by a man.
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10:17 Wireless Communication - Hedy Lamarr If you're watching this on Wi-Fi,
10:22 you have this Hollywood star partially to thank for it.
10:25 During World War II, she came up with the concept of frequency hopping,
10:35 bouncing a signal across radio frequencies to prevent an enemy from jamming it.
10:39 Composer George Antile developed a way to use it in radio transmitters,
10:43 and together, they presented their idea to the Navy. At the time, the Navy thought it was
10:48 impractical, but later used it successfully in the 50s and 60s. Her idea eventually evolved into
10:54 many different technologies, including the ones that make cell phones, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth
11:00 possible. Despite having a patent, Lamarr and Antile were never compensated for their invention,
11:06 and Lamarr's contribution was mostly ignored until the 1990s.
11:10 Which inventor inspires you the most? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
11:16 Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo,
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11:31 [Music]