3 Ingenious Women Inventions
By: Courtney
Our life is as we know it is owed to a number of remarkable women and their creations. As much as I’d like to acknowledge them all, there just isn’t enough time in a day!
There are three women who I just couldn’t go without mentioning, as I just can’t imagine my life without each of their inventions. Surprisingly, all of their inventions are water-related. What is that saying? Give a woman water and she’ll make wine.
The Aquarium
Jeanne Villepreux-Power was born in 1794 to a seamstress and a shoemaker. Thanks to her knowledge and artistry as a dressmaker, she would make her way around France. She took a particular interest in marine life and educated herself in many science related subjects through her love of reading. Her fascination with molluscs and their fossils brought Villepreux-Power to the realization that there was not yet a way to study the creatures who lurked underwater, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.
This instead inspired Villepreux-Power to create what we know today as the aquarium. Her ingenious idea led her to invent three different types of aquariums. The glass aquarium (which is most like the aquariums we see today), a submersible aquarium, and a cage that could be kept at sea to examine the creatures in their natural habitat.
The Dishwasher
Josephine Cochrane was born in 1839, with innovation running through her veins. Her father, a civil engineer, supervised the creation of a series of mills; while her grandfather invented the steamboat. Not long after, Cochrane would be following in their footsteps.
Funny enough, it was the one thing we all have in common that ignited Cochrane’s ingenious idea–doing the dishes. One of the most tedious daily tasks, but back then an automatic dishwasher hadn’t even been thought of. That is, until Cochrane tired of hand-washing her dishes and said, “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself.”
The Windshield Wipers
Mary Anderson was from Alabama, not much is known about her, aside from her contribution to the modern day car. While visiting New York one snowy day, she’d have an epiphany. Anderson got stuck in traffic, and as snow covered the windshield she noticed the difficulty the driver was having seeing his way through the terrible weather. Critiquing what little contraption they had to wipe snow away from the driver’s site, she got to sketching her very own creation, right there in that car ride.
Now, although Anderson was not the first person to come up with the ingenious idea of windshield wipers, she was the first one to create an effective model of them. Much as we see in our own cars today, her model used a lever inside the car to control the rubber blade on the windshield.
What would life be without this ingenuity?
Imagine a world without the opportunity to examine marine life within your own home, or never being able to visit an aquarium. Think of your favorite marine animal, and the fact that you may have never known what it looks like or that it even existed. Now, think of a world where automatic dishwashers don’t exist. Yeah… I don’t want to either. Lastly, envision a windshield wiper-less world. We wouldn’t be able to see a thing while driving home in those heavy Austin rainstorms!
The next time you’re feeling grateful that a certain invention exists, take some time to read about the ingenious mind behind it. The background story of it and the creator may surprise you!
Edited by: Hayden
