Women Inventors: A History Lesson

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the first U.S. patent awarded to a woman for her invention. It didn't happen until 19 years after the Patent Act of 1790 was enacted to protect individuals' rights to their inventions, and the recipient was Mary Kies, who received a patent in 1809 for her method of weaving straw with silk to make women's hats. Hers was one of only 20 patents issued to a woman before 1840. Those inventions were related to apparel, tools, cook stoves and fireplaces.

Few women sought patents in the 19th century because, in many states, they couldn't legally own property independent of their husbands. As a result, women didn't bother to patent their inventions, sought patents in their husband's names or sold the rights to their inventions--often for a paltry sum--to hide their gender.

The situation certainly has improved since the 1800s. Women accounted for 10.9 percent of patents overall in 2002, the last year for which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has data available.

In honor of National Women's History Month, we decided to highlight four women inventors of the past whose inventions made a significant impact on society.

First woman to receive a U.S. patent in her own name
Mary Kies
Patented: May 5, 1809

Mary Kies, a Connecticut native, invented a process for weaving straw with silk or thread. The technique proved valuable for making cost-effective bonnets for women who worked in the fields.

First Lady Dolley Madison honored Kies for bolstering New England's economy during an embargo her husband, President James Madison, placed on imported European goods. The embargo was introduced to maintain America's neutrality during the Napoleonic wars, and the first couple hoped Kies' invention would boost American manufacturing.

Several industrialists invested in Kies' straw-weaving process, but changing tastes in fashion soon robbed her hat-making technique of commercial value.

A fire at the U.S. Patent Office destroyed Kies' original patent file in 1986. A year later, Kies died penniless in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her grave in the Old South Killingly Cemetery lacked a headstone until 1965, when the local Grange erected a monument.

Today, two samples of the straw fabric woven by Mary Kies are on display at the Killingly Public Library in Danielson, Conn. Other samples are on display in the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Conn.

Dishwasher
Josephine Garis Cochrane
Patented: 1886

Josephine Garis Cochrane wasn't the only inventor in her family. Her father, John Garis, invented a hydraulic pump for draining marshes and her great-grandfather, John Fitch, obtained a patent for a steamboat design in 1791.

Married to William A. Cochran, she Europeanized her married name by adding an "e" after her husband died in 1883. Shortly thereafter, she invented the dishwasher to preserve her family treasures. It's said that Cochrane, a wealthy Illinois socialite, was tired of her servants chipping her heirloom china. She reportedly proclaimed, "If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I'll do it myself."

She measured her dishes and built a set of wire compartments, each designed to fit plates, cups or saucers. The compartments were placed inside a wheel that lay flat inside a copper boiler. A motor turned the wheel, pumping hot, soapy water from the bottom of the boiler to rain down on the dishes.

Cochrane unveiled her dishwasher at the 1883 Chicago World's Fair, where restaurants bought all nine that she had made. Cochrane founded the Garis-Cochran Dish-Washing Co., naming it for her father and her husband, to manufacture and market the machines. But at the time, most homes' hot water heaters couldn't supply as much hot water as the dishwasher required, so sales were limited to restaurants and hotels.

Cochrane died in 1913, but her dishwasher didn't become popular for home use until the 1950s, with the advent of more hot water in the home, effective dishwashing detergent and a change in attitude toward housework.

Cochrane's company became KitchenAid, and the first KitchenAid dishwasher--based on Cochrane's design--was introduced to the public in 1949.

Disposable Diaper
Marion Donovan
Patented: 1951

Marion Donovan was born Marion O'Brien to a family of inventors in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1917. Her father and uncle--who owned a manufacturing plant--invented the South Bend lathe, used for grinding automobile gears and gun barrels. After her mother died when she was 7, Marion spent a great deal of her free time at the factory.

She briefly worked for Vogue magazine before marrying James Donovan and raising a family. Like so many mothers, Donovan was frustrated by her baby's exasperating habit of wetting her diapers as soon as they were changed, and soiling the sheets.

In 1946, she designed a waterproof diaper cover that she named the "boater," using a series of shower curtains to create a reusable, leak-proof diaper cover that didn't create diaper rash.

The final product, available in 1949, was made of nylon parachute cloth, and featured metal and plastic snaps instead of safety pins. Donovan later designed a composition of sturdy, absorbent paper. She received her patent in 1951.

Manufacturers initially laughed at her invention. Undeterred, Donovan went into business for herself and eventually sold her company for $1 million.

The diaper wasn't Donovan's only invention. She eventually received more than a dozen patents for items including the Big Hangup, a compact hanger that held 30 garments; the Zippity-Do, an elastic cord that attached to the zipper on the back of a dress to make it easier to zip up; and a soap dish designed to drain into a sink.

Liquid Paper
Bette Nesmith Graham
Patented: 1954

An executive secretary with a passion for art, Betty Nesmith combined her two avocations to develop Liquid Paper.

In 1951, Nesmith, a divorcee, was an executive secretary for W.W. Overton, chairman of the board of the Texas Bank & Trust in Dallas. Electric typewriters were becoming popular at the time, and mistakes were difficult to erase because of the carbon-film ribbons used in the devices.

Nesmith, who dabbled in painting and drawing, realized that artists painted over the mistakes they made and decided that typists should be able to do the same. She put white, water-based tempura paint in a bottle and took her watercolor brush to the office.

Nesmith secretly used her white correction paint for five years. But with co-workers clamoring for the paint, she eventually began marketing what she called "Mistake Out" in 1956. The name was later changed to Liquid Paper.

The company began in Nesmith's kitchen, where she mixed the product with her electric mixer. Nesmith's son Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame) and his friends filled bottles for her customers.

Nesmith patented the product, renamed it Liquid Paper, and obtained a trademark. In 1957 a magazine called The Office mentioned the product, and soon business was booming. Nesmith married her second husband, Robert Graham, in 1962 and he joined the business as well. By 1967, it had grown into a million-dollar business.

In 1968, Graham moved into her own plant and corporate headquarters, automated operations, and had 19 employees. That year Liquid Paper sold a million bottles.

In 1975, Nesmith Graham divorced her husband and opened a 35,000-square-foot headquarters building in Dallas. A year later, the company's net earnings were $1.5 million and the product was being sold in 31 countries around the world.

Graham used a portion of her fortune to set up two foundations to help women in need, the Gihon Foundation, established in 1976; and the Bette Clair McMurray Foundation, founded in 1978.

In 1979, Graham sold her company to the Gillette Corp. for $47.5 million. A year later she died at the age of 56.

Read about the hurdles Joan Lunden had to leap to get her invention, the KinderKord, on store shelves.

Got an idea for an invention? Enter it in the American Women of Invention Search, presented by Bed, Bath & Beyond and Edison Nation.