Name Three Inventors

“Name three inventors,” I asked of my 8th grade language arts class more than 10 years ago when I was still teaching.

Hands went up and I called on students, who named Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright Brothers—well known inventors. I wanted the students to dig deepr, so I said “Name a woman inventor.” Not a single hand went up despite the fact that they all knew that I had invented the attachable erasers I was using on the whiteboard. After a moment, one student raised his hand. “Yes, Steven,” I said.

“I don’t think there are any women inventors,” he said.

My mouth dropped open; I was speechless. Though I’d often told the kids about my adventures while inventing the eraser, Steven did not view me as an inventor. When I regained my voice and questioned the class further, it was clear that that none of them could name a female inventor. This simple question opened a much bigger one for me. I realized that I couldn’t really give a satisfying answer to my own question. I had met several women in the course of working to get my eraser patented, but I didn’t know of any women inventors beyond these few.

I decided that it was imperative that I be able to promptly answer this question myself, especially if I wanted my students to be able answer without hesitation. Research, however, offered a bleak picture. There were no books on the library shelves about women inventors. Further investigation revealed that few had been written. Then I stumbled upon a used copy of Mothers of Invention: From the Bra to the Bomb, Forgotten Women and Their Unforgettable Ideas written in 1988 by Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek.



The authors say in their Preface that they wrote the book as “attempt to resurrect from the cracks of history the names and stories of remarkable women who changed the world –and were promptly ignored by it.” From this fascinating and thoroughly researched book, I learned about Sybilla Masters who invented a corn refining machine in 1793. The patent was issued to her husband because women were not allowed file in their names back then. I learned that Margaret Knight invented the flat bottomed brown paper bag in 1870, a product still in use today. The book is filled with stories about women whose inventions range from practical to scientific, from frivolous to serious. The stories also describe the obstacles that women inventors have faced since the dawn of human history. Reading these stories was a true eye-opener. When Vare and Ptacek followed with a sequel in 2002 called Patently Female: for AZT to TV Dinners, Stories of Women Inventors and Their Breakthrough Ideas, I bought it immediately.


These books have motivated me to write my own book about women inventors: The Right Sisters. In future posts, I will tell you about the women inventors I’ve met on the pages of these books as well as in real life. I hope you’ll pass their stories along. My wish is that to expand reader's awareness so that if you are asked to name a woman inventor, you have names bursting forth: Marie Curie, Claire McCardell, Amanda Theodosia Jones, Kate Gleason, Wendy Steele, Julia Rhodes.