From: farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf)
Subject: Women as inventors
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc.
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 03:46:16 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.211349.19801@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>If all the contributions of Dead White Males, a.k.a. Dead White Loathsome
>Oppressors, were to vanish, you'd have the Politically Correct(tm) Loathsome
>Oppressors using dull rocks to hunt and the Politically Correct Women of
>Vision and Strength(tm) using leaves for tampons.

From an article entitled "The Real Mothers of Invention" by Pamela
Warrick of the LA Times (repeated portions without permission):

The telphone.  The light bulb.  The automobile.

Quick.  Name the inventors.  Of course you can.

How about flat-bottomed paper bags, bullet-proof vests and Scotchgard?
The dishwasher, the fire escape, AZT?

Of course you can't.

Why?  Because these inventors are women, says historian Anne
Macdonald.  That's why they're hard to find in history books.  Or in
any books.

"For a long time, it was thought women were only creative
biologically," says Macdonald.  "While we know that's not true, there
is no question that when it comes to inventions, women have been
horribly ignored."

Hedy Lamarr was ignored.  You know, the inventor Hedy Lamarr.  Famous
for appearing nude in the 1933 movie "Ecstasy" and for saying, "Any
girl can be glamerous.  All you have to do is stand still and look
stupid."  Lamarr was also highly mechanical, one of Hollywood's
best-kept secrets.  (The story goes on to say that she patented an
anti-jamming device in 1940, offered it to the War Department, but was
turned down.  After her patent expired, Sylvania adapted the
invention.)

Dr. Gertrude Elion...won a Nobel Prize in 1988 for developing drugs to
fight herpes, cancer and other diseases.

Since 1937, when she was refused a laboratory job because she was "too
cute" and threatened to distract the other workers, Elion has patented
45 of her discoveries.

A 1990 bicentennial exhibit at the Patent and Trademark Office in
Washington spotlighted the many obstacles women have faced to compete
in this man's world and concluded that "all it takes is equal access"
for women to succeed.

According to exhibit curator Fred Amram, women have been victims of
biased public education, social pressure, and, until the turn of the
cnetury, laws that denied women the same rights to protperty and
profit that men had.

Research by both Amram and Macdonald reveals that plenty of women
inventors never received credit for their work, including two who had
a hand in Colonial American's most famous inventions.  

It was Catherine Greene, according to some 19th century accounts, who
helped her farm mechanic, Eli Whitney, build the first cotton gin.
And it was an early design by Ann Harned Manning that led to the
creation of Cyrus McCormick's reaper.

Although Manning probably invented the mower on which the reaper was
modeled, it was her husband who held the patent.  Married women had no
property rights until the turn of the century.  And "ladies" were not
encouraged to own up to their mechanical talents.  

Rather than admit to such unladylike leanings, writes Macdonald, it
was not unusual for women in the 1800s to claim to be under the
influence of spirits when defending their inventiveness.

Amanda Theodosia Jones, for example, told the world that her idea for
vacuum canning, the genesis of an entire food industry, came not from
any personal cleverness but from her brother's ghost instructing her
from the grave.

"How many women's inventions are hidden under the name of fathers,
husbands, brothers and sons, we cannot of course know," lamented
Charlotte Smith, founder of the National Women's Industrial League in
1890 and the first to try to tally the number of women patent holders.

Smith found that female inventors gave up patents--and profits--for
many reasons.  Ellen F. Eglin, who invented the clothes wringer and
sold the patent rights for $18, told Smith's Women Inventor newspaper
why:
"You know I am black, and if it was known that a Negro woman patented
the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer."  Eglin's
invention made a lot of money, but not for her.

Inventive (read: desperate) mothers have been responsible for designs
to ease their childcare load--from the first baby-jumper, invented by
Jane Wells in 1872, to the disposable diaper, patented by Marion
Donovan in 1951.  Ann Moore invented the Snugli child carrier after a
West African tour with the Peace Corps--and then went on to patent a
personal carrier for portable oxygen supplies.