May is National Inventors Month, a month set aside to recognize the curiosity and imagination of people who innovate and create.

The May 13 blog post highlighted the following female inventors: Jeanne Villepreux-Power, Margaret Knight, Josephine Cochrane, Mary Anderson, and Sarah Breedlove. You can read the post here.

The May 20 blog post highlighted the following female inventors: Melitta Bentz, Beulah Louise Henry, Ruth Graves Wakefield, Grace Hopper, and Virginia Apgar. You can read the post here.

Here are five more innovative women from across history:

Marie Van Brittan Brown (1922 – 1999)

American nurse Marie Van Brittan Brown was concerned about safety whenever she was home alone. The crime rate in her neighborhood of Queens, New York had been increasing, and police response time was slow. Working with her husband (an electrician), Brown created a system of four peepholes and a movable camera that connected wirelessly to a monitor in their bedroom. A two-way microphone allowed conversation with someone outside, and buttons could sound an alarm or remotely unlock the door. In addition to obtaining a patent in 1969, Brown received an award from the National Science Committee. Her innovative idea became the groundwork for modern home security systems.

Patricia Bath (b. 1942)

Patricia Bath was the first black person to serve as an ophthalmology resident at New York University and the first woman on staff at the Jules Stein Eye Institute. She was also the first African-American female doctor to receive a patent for medical purposes. She invented the Laserphaco Probe, a medical device that quickly and painlessly uses a laser to dissolve cataracts, then irrigates and cleans the eye to make inserting a replacement lens quick and easy. She is also the inventor of community ophthalmology, a new discipline dedicated to ensuring that all members of the population have access to eye and vision care.

Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta

When the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta were graduate students at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. They were assigned a project to help with disaster relief in one of their classes. After speaking to a relief worker, Stork and Sreshta decided to create an inflatable, waterproof, and solar-powered light. The LuminAID Solar Light can be packed flat, charges in six hours to provide light for sixteen, and features a handle, making it easy to carry. They used a crowdfunding campaign to make the first 1,000 lights and later started a Give Light Project: one light is donated for every light purchased. They have also provided lights to Nepal and to Syrian refugees.

Ayla Hutchinson

After watching her mother cut her finger while splitting kindling, New Zealand teen Ayla Hutchinson decided to invent a device to make cutting kindling safer. She invented the Kindling Cracker as a science fair project. The cast-iron device uses a built-in ax blade in a safety cage. The cage holds the wood while you hit it with a hammer, easily splitting the log into pieces. After receiving a positive response to her prototype, she developed the idea further. Her father helped her start a company to manufacture it. Within two years, tens of thousands of Kindling Crackers were sold across New Zealand. In 2015, a distribution agreement with a major US tool company helped sell 22 tons of Kindling Crackers in North America.

May is National Inventors Month, a month set aside to recognize the curiosity and imagination of people who innovate and create.

Last Friday’s post highlighted the following female inventors: Jeanne Villepreux-Power, Margaret Knight, Josephine Cochrane, Mary Anderson, and Sarah Breedlove. You can read the post here.

Here are five more innovative women from across history:

Melitta Bentz (1873 – 1950)

German entrepreneur Melitta Bentz was frustrated with the coffeemakers of her time. The percolators often over-brewed coffee, the espresso-style machines left grounds in the drink, and the linen bag filters were difficult to clean. She experimented with different materials and finally found a solution: blotting paper from her son’s school exercise book. She inserted the blotting paper inside a brass pot perforated with a nail, obtained a patent, and set up a business to manufacture the filters. She sold hundreds of filters within a year, including 1,200 at the 1909 Leipzig Fair alone. By 1928, her company employed dozens of people. Beloved for her generous bonuses and work schedules, she also created “Melitta Aid,” a social fund for her company’s workers. The Melitta Group is still making coffee, coffee makers, and filters today.

Beulah Louise Henry (1887 – 1973)

American inventor Beulah Louise Henry submitted her first patent for a vacuum ice cream freezer while still a college student in 1912. In 1924, she moved to New York and founded two companies to sell her many inventions. She is known for 110 inventions and 49 patents. In the 1930s and 1940s, she shifted her attention to improving existing machines, including typewriters. One of her patents was for a “protograph,” a typewriter that created an original and four identical copies without using carbon paper. She spent the 1950s and 1960s working as a consultant for companies.

Ruth Graves Wakefield (1903 – 1977)

A university graduate, American entrepreneur Ruth Graves Wakefield began her career touring as a dietician. In 1930, she and her husband bought the Toll House Inn, which became famous for Wakefield’s delicious and innovative desserts. One day, she took an ice pick to a block of chocolate and added it to the cookie dough. The chocolate chip cookie was born! When she added the recipe for the cookie in her best-selling cookbook, the Nelson Chocolate Company noticed a spike in demand for their semi-sweet chocolate. They approached Wakefield and obtained the rights to the recipe.

Grace Hopper (1906 – 1992)

When mathematician Grace Hopper began her computer science career, all programs were written in numerical code. Determined to make programming more accessible, Hopper invented the first compiler in 1952, enabling teaching computers to “talk.” Her colleagues initially dismissed the compiler, informing Hopper that “computers could only do arithmetic.” She later co-invented the COBOL computer language, the first universal programming language used in business and government. During Hopper’s naval career, she achieved the rank of Rear Admiral by special Presidential appointment and was nicknamed “Amazing Grace.” Quotable quote from Hopper: “The most important thing I’ve accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir’em up at intervals so they don’t forget to take chances.”

Virginia Apgar (1909 – 1974)

A pioneering anesthesiologist and the first female full professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Virginia Apgar realized that medical personnel had no standardized way of assessing the health of newborns. So, she developed a clear set of criteria that were easy communicate. The Apgar Score provides a handy mnemonic for areas to assess: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration. Apgar was also the author of the 1972 book, Is My Baby All Right? This book provided parents with a guide to birth defects, a taboo topic of the times. Quotable quote from Apgar: “Nobody, but nobody, is going to stop breathing on me.”

May is National Inventors Month, a month set aside to recognize the curiosity and imagination of people who innovate and create.

Today and for the next two Fridays, I will be highlighting innovative women who have imagined, developed, tested, and perfected their creations.

Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794 – 1871)

The French naturalist started her scientific studies on the island of Sicily. While studying the paper nautilus (an unusual octopus that spends its life drifting the oceans near the surface), Jeanne Villepreux-Power decided to test a popular hypothesis. It was believed that the nautilus took its shell from another organism. She created the first glass aquarium to observe the nautilus in controlled conditions and proved that it made its own shell. She also designed a glass apparatus within a cage for studying shallow water creatures and a cage-like aquarium that could be raised and lowered to different depths.

Margaret E. Knight (1828 – 1914)

A Maine resident, 30-year-old Margaret Knight built a machine that folded and glued paper to create a flat-bottomed paper bag. When the paper bags became popular, a man stole the idea. In court, he argued that a woman “could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities.” Knight won her case and went on to invent over 100 different machines. She patented 20 of them, including a rotary engine, a shoe-cutting machine, and a window frame with a sash.

Josephine Cochrane (1839 – 1913)

After servants chipped her heirloom dishes, American inventor Josephine Cochrane invented a mechanical dishwasher that held dishes securely in a rack. At the same time, the pressure of a water sprayer cleaned them. In 1883, her husband died and left her with substantial debt. Determined to pay off her debts, Cochrane obtained a patent in 1886 and began marketing her dishwasher to hotels. In those days, women did not cross hotel lobbies alone. She later commented, “I thought I should faint at every step, but I didn’t—and I got an $800 order as my reward.” In 1893, her dishwasher was exhibited at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1915, her company was bought by Kitchen Aid.

Mary Anderson (1866 – 1953)

An Alabama resident, real estate developer and rancher, Mary Anderson visited New York City in 1902. When she rode in a trolley car, she noticed the driver had to open the panes of the front window to see through falling sleet. Back in Alabama, she set to work on a solution. Her device used a lever inside the vehicle to control a rubber blade on the windshield. Despite its effectiveness, car manufacturers dismissed Anderson’s invention. One Canadian firm commented, “We do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant its sale.” In 1922, Cadillac became the first manufacturer to include a windshield wiper on all its vehicles. Soon afterward, wipers became standard equipment.

Sarah Breedlove (1867 – 1919)

While working as a laundress, Sarah Breedlove observed that many black women struggled with hair loss and scalp diseases. The reasons: a lack of indoor plumbing and harsh ingredients in hair products. She developed her own life of hair care products specifically designed for African American hair. Hoping to evoke Parisian luxury, she branded the products with her new identity of Madam C. J. Walker. Later, she set up a college to train “hair culturists,” creating employment opportunities for thousands of African American women. Breedlove became the first female self-made millionaire in the United States.