If you haven ´t watched the movie Joy yet, you should definitely go to the cinema to check it out. This inspirational movie is a story of a single mother from Los Angeles, who invented the Miracle Mop after years of being frustrated by the bad quality of other mops that have been on the market in the 90 ´s.
This movie is based on a real life story and nowadays, Joy has her own company called Ingenious Design with over 100 different inventions. I bet there are a lot of things in your daily life that you are using and a lot of them have been invented by women. Below are some examples of women who have made great inventions that are part of our daily lives. Joy has inspired me to conduct a little research on female entrepreneurs and I have found some very surprising ones!
A single-mother called Bette Nesmith Graham invented the office corrector in 1951
Bette was born in Dallas, worked as a secretary in a bank and used her spare time to paint. At work, she always had to correct mistakes on paper, but once Graham thought that artists will never erase their mistakes, and simply paint over them. After experimenting with paints, Bette managed to create a correction fluid in her kitchen with a blender. “White — Out“ gained popularity, and Graham sold the product for 17 years from her house, and in 1979, sold all rights of her invention to Gillette Corporation for 47.5 million dollars.
German housewife Melitta Bentz invented the coffee filter in 1908
Melitta was born in Dresden and loved coffee. One day she was tired of constantly cleaning fabric filters for coffee, and she thought about a more efficient solution. Melitta once tried to use filter coffee blotter out of a paper of her son’s notebook, and embedded it in a pot with holes. Bentz hence invented the first disposable coffee filter, which is used often to this day. Together with her husband, she found the company to produce filter paper and then her sons took over the business.
Katharine Burr Blodgett physicist invented the revolutionary glass in 1938
Katharine Burr Blodgett was born in Schenectady, New York, and was educated at the University of Chicago. Experimenting in the lab with a coating for glass, Carrie came up with the idea to use a thin metal film that allows the glass to transmit 99% of the light, but prevents glare and reflections. Today, it is widely used glass for projectors, cameras, microscopes, telescopes, camera lenses, and other equipment.
British student Emily Cummins invented a solar-powered refrigerator in 2009
As a student, Emily went on an expedition to Namibia, and there developed a simple refrigerator, which uses sunlight to evaporate water and to cool food or medicine. Carefully thought out and experiencing all parts of the device, Cummins has taught residents of the southern part of Africa, how to construct their own refrigerators.
Mary Anderson invented the windshield wipers in 1903
Anderson was born in Greene County, Alabama, but in winter 1902 she visited New York and watched in horror how wet snow impairs visibility on the road and prevents traffic safety. In her notebook, Mary immediately drew a simple diagram of brush cleaner on the outside of the windshield, which is driven by a clever mechanism. The following year, she has patented her invention, but it gained popularity a few years later with the advent of the car Ford Model T. The design is used to this day.
Stephanie Kwolek invented bullet-proof fabric in 1964
Stephanie Kwolek was born in a family of Polish immigrants in Pennsylvania. While at DuPont, she came up with an easy, yet incredibly durable synthetic fiber that is supposed to be used for the manufacture of tires. The fabric is called Kevlar and was used as a base material for the manufacture of more than 200 different items, including bulletproof vests, gloves, building materials and more.
Hedy Lamarr invented a wireless connection in 1941
Hedy Lamarr was born in Vienna and emigrated to Hollywood to become a famous actress. She managed to do this, but during the Second World War, together with her friend George Antheil, she developed a system that allows remote control of torpedoes by means of radio communication. Admission and data transmission for the first time was carried out using a random code that is constantly changing radio channel, not allowing the enemy to intercept the information.
Rachel Zimmerman invented printer Blissymbols in 1984
Zimmerman was born in Ontario, Canada, and at just 12 years of age, developed a printer that returned the ability to communicate to people with severe disabilities. Patients who could not communicate, could now, by selecting characters on the device, translate them into a written option to easily visualize their ideas to others using Blissymbols — an international language system, consisting of graphic symbols and can replace any language.
Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie in 1930
Once Wakefield and her husband bought a small house in Whitman, Massachusetts, they opened a cafe. During the preparation of the next batch of cookies Ruth added to the dough a few pieces of chocolate for the sake of the experiment. The result exceeded all expectations: biscuits acquired incredible popularity and brand prescription went all cookbooks. Later, Wakefield concluded an agreement with Nestle, allowing them to print the recipe of its cookies on the wrapper in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate!
Margaret Knight invented the paper bag in 1868
After the Civil War, Margaret worked at the factory and came up with a machine that folds the brown wrapping paper such as an envelope, and then glued together in the right places to form a paper bag with a flat bottom. However, she later had to defend her right to the invention in a court of Charles Annan, who stole Knight patented the idea and the first paper bag. Justice triumphed, however, and the patent found its rightful owner.
These women are definitely an inspiration and give the motivation necessary to all young women out there! It is never to late to be successful!