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.
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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]