Famous Women Inventors – a Few Historic Female Inventors
Posted on July 6, 2008
Filed Under Women Leaders | 10 Comments
Throughout history famous women inventors and mostly, not so famous women inventors, have contributed immensely to the world of invention and innovation. Women inventors are the creators of a wide variety of inventions that we all take for granted. For instance here are some of the inventions women are responsible for: the disposable cell phone, liquid paper, flat-bottom paper grocery bags, scotch-guard and even the Kevlar that’s used in body armor.
Think of the struggle women must have endured and probably still endure to some extent just to be taken seriously by the men they were surrounded by. Imagine growing up as a girl in the 1800’s and 1900’s and being interested in anything mechanical, electrical, or scientific.
A brief look at some famous women inventors.
The Famous Maria Curie – woman inventor
Maria Curie (born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867) possibly the most famous woman inventor, was one of the first woman scientists to gain worldwide fame, and was one of the great scientists of this century.
Dr. Curie is primarily known for her discovery of Radium and Polonium. She also discovered that x-rays were able to kill tumors. She was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. Marie Curie decided not to obtain patents for the processing of radium and the medical applications applicable to it.
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was most famous for her acting career, although she was an inventor as well.
Hedy Lamarr was born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the daughter of Jewish parents Gertrud, a pianist and Budapest native and Lemberg-born Emil Kiesler, a successful bank director. As a young girl she studied ballet and piano.
She married Friedrich Mandl, a Vienna-based arms manufacturer, 13 years her senior. He stopped her acting career, and took her to meetings with technicians and business partners. She once stated that Mandl was consorting with Nazi industrialists and that infuriated her. In 1937, she attended a party wearing her expensive jewelry, drugging Mandl with the help of her maid, and making her escape out of the country.
In Hollywood, she was cast as glamorous and seductive. Her American debut was in Algiers (1938). Her many films include Boom Town (1940), White Cargo (1942), and Tortilla Flat (1942), based on the novel by John Steinbeck. White Cargo, Cecil B.
Frequency-hopped spread spectrum invention
Hedy and her co-inventor, George Antheil, invented a torpedo guidance system that was twenty years ahead of its time.
On 11 August 1942, U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and “Hedy Kiesler Markey”, Lamarr’s married name at the time. This early version of frequency hopping was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam.
It was not used until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba, after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil (who died in 1959) made any money from the patent. The patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Hedy an award for this contribution.
Margaret Knight – Prolific Inventor and the Queen of Paper Bags
Before Margaret Knight came along, paper bags were similar to large envelopes. Margaret was employed in a factory producing paper bags when she came up with a way of making a machine automatically fold and glue paper bags to create square.
Margaret Knight can be considered the mother of the grocery bag, and she started the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870.
Margaret Knight (Mattie) was born in 1838 receiving her first patent at the age of 30 and has been described as a female Edison. At the age of 12, she came up with a stop-motion device that could be used in textile mills to shut down machinery, to prevent the machinery from injuring the workers.
In her career Margaret Knight received 26 patents for everything from shoe sole cutting machines to improvements in internal combustion engines.
Margaret Knight’s machine made flat-bottomed paper bags are still in use to this very day!
Watch the video related to famous women history
back in 8th grade, garth liked to dress in drag and talk like oprah in front of the whole school. sorry about the chatting in the back; we were all watching the vhs in the studio
Help answer the question about famous women history
Can you give me the names of 10 famous women in history who you greatly admire?They can be contemptorary women, such as Oprah or Angela Merkle or they can be women from times of antiqutity.
About Author
For help with new product and invention ideas, online marketing, prototyping and more: Famous Women Inventors Learn about patents, inventing, read inventions stories, marketing and more.
Learn about tankless water heaters: Tankless Water HeatersAll about storage type and tankless type water heaters.
Comments
10 Responses to “Famous Women Inventors – a Few Historic Female Inventors”
Leave a Reply
as an expert he should know that the name of a woman, how took a picture “Migrant Mother” is Dorothea Lange and not Dorothy Allen.
Yes.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_list.htm
C.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Abigail Adams
Harriet Tubman
Joan of Arc
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Queen Elizabeth I
Golda Meir
Madeleine Albright
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Susan B. Anthony
Rosa Parks
Oops, that's 11.
Ok-
For Cambodia, I found a site that has famous women authors from Cambodia. You need to join the site to read the entire article about these three women, but the teaser has enough information to see if this might work for you.
For Thailand, I liked the interview with Dr. Pusadee Tamthai, which I linked below. She sounds great. (link below)
For Laos, I liked the speeches of Ms Onechanh Thammavong, a Member of Parliament. (in Laos) She's given speeches for the UN. (I linked her speeches below)
Pharoah Hatshepsut
How about Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings, mother of at least two others, Richard the Lionhearted and John? She got an annulment from her first marriage to Louis VII of France on grounds of consanguinity, then quickly married Henry II of England to whom she was even more closely related. Her inheritance of French land was a major cause of the Hundred Years War.
Another Eleanor (Roosevelt)
In science, Marie Curie, winner of two Nobel Prizes.
In Medicine – Rebecca Lancefield, Virginia Apgar and Helen Taussig.
In legend – Helen of Troy
For Byzantine intrigue: Theodora, actress, courtesan and wife of Emperor Justinian.
For Rennaisance intrigue: Lucrezia Borgia.
For class in the face of adversity: Jackie Kennedy and Laura Bush
Founding Mother – Abigail Adams.
Boadicea,Queen of the Iceni, who led a massive revolt against the Romans in Britain.
Zenobia. queen of Palmyra, she built a powerful empire in the east. Eventually she rebelled against rome and was defeated, taken to Rome in chains, she retired and married a Roman.
Saint Brigit of ireland. She founded the first the first nunnery in Ireland at Kildare, which became a double monastery for monks and nuns, famous as a centre of learning all over Europe. She founded churches throughout Ireland.
Hilda, abbess of Whitby, a powerful churchwoman who presided over the Synod of whitby in 666.
Empress Wu. A concubine who became empress of china, and ruled for many years as regent for her son.
Aefelflaed 'lady of the Mercians' the daughter of King Alfred, who fought against the Vikings in the 9th century AD.
Hildegarde of Bingen, a German nun who was a composer, scientist, and mystic. Wrote many books, and gave advice to the popes of her day.
Matilda of Tuscany, who ruled much of Italy in the 11th century, and fought on the side of the Pope against the Holy roman Emperor.
empress Matilda, the daughter of King henry I of england, who made a determined bid for the throne of england in the 12th century, and fought her cousin Stephen for the throne for many years.
Queen Blanche, mother of King Louis IX of France, who acted as regent for her son for many years during his childhood.
Catherine if Sienna. A nun who was a mystic and who gave advice to two popes.
Saint Bridget of Sweden. Another nun who was also a composer and who gave influential advice to the popes of her day.
Christine de Pisan, the first European woman known to have earned a living through writing, she wrote many books on many subjects. Her last work was a poem in praise of Joan of Arc.
Joan of Arc, who led the French armies against the English in the Hundred Years War, successfully raised the siege of Orleans, and crowned the Dauphin King of France.
Isabella of Castille, who married Ferdinand of Aragon, and thereby untied Spain under one rule. She financed christopher Columbus in his voyage in which he accidentally discovered america.
P.S. Cleopatra (mentioned in an answer above) was a great woman, but she was BC, not AD.
Condoleezza Rice because she has sexy pantyhose covered legs and to play with for a month!
Messalina was one of the worst.
Lady Hester Stanhope. The niece of William Pitt the Younger (British prime minister) she liked to dress as a man, and went to live in Turkey.
Mary Lincoln. Wife of Abraham Lincoln, a woman of ferocious temper, who was once seen chasing the future president down a road waving a kitchen knife.
Lillian Russell. Famous actress and beauty of late 19th century America. She liked to ride through Central Park on a gold-plated bicycle, its spokes studded with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. She got married several times, but liked to play poker on her wedding nights rather than going to bed.
'Calamity Jane' (Martha Jane Canary), another woman who liked to dress as a man, and who was variously employed as amueskinner, US Army scout, wagon freighter and Indian fighter (so she said anyway).
Molly Brown, fabulously wealthy and vulgar millionairess whose voice, it was said, was like a train whistle, and her gowns resemblec Christmas trees. She became a heroine after she survived the sinking of the Titanic.
Flora Sandes. Englishwoman who joined up as a nurse in WW1 and ended up serving as a soldier in Serbia. another woman who liked to dress as a man (there were a lot of them about).