Throughout history, many women have made invaluable contributions to the world despite facing gender discrimination. They helped humanity with inventions without which we cannot imagine life today and which you may not even know are the "product" of the female mind.
1. Paper bag
A worker in a cotton factory, Margaret Knight in 1868 invented the paper bag, but a man named Charles Annan tried to steal her idea and was the first to patent it. While working at the Columbia Paper Bag Company in 1867, Knight began constructing a machine that produced flat-bottomed paper bags. When her colleague Charles Anan tried to steal her idea, Knight sued him and after a long legal battle won the battle and got a patent for her machine.
2. Medicines for serious diseases such as leukemia
Gertrude Elion and her colleague George Hitchings invented some of the first drugs for serious and severe diseases such as leukemia, AIDS and herpes. Elion and Hitchings developed a method that helped k a revolution in drug manufacturing. Through their research, they influenced the growth of cells, which led to the invention of the first effective drugs against leukemia and other serious diseases. Elion also invented azathioprine, an immunosuppressant that allowed people with weak immune systems to receive organ transplants.
3. Car wipers
As early as 1903, Mary Anderson thought that car wipers would be extremely useful. It's a year later patented a stick with a rubber tip, which sticks to the glass. Although her idea was put into mass production only a few decades later, today we cannot even imagine driving a car without her simple but very important invention.
4. Caller identity and call waiting
Achievements in telecommunications research Dr. Shirley Anne Jackson led the way to the invention Caller ID and Call Waiting. With a doctorate in particle physics, Dr. Jackson the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1976 to 1991, Jackson worked in the laboratories of the American telecommunications company AT&T, where she contributed to the development of the caller and call waiting identity service. In 2016, then US President Barack Obama awarded Shirley Anna Jackson the highest recognition for scientific achievement in the US – the National Medal of Science.
5. Monopoly
Elizabeth Magie is the brainchild of one of the most popular board games of all time. This game was originally called “The Landlord's Game” and was invented or patented in 1903. Although today's purpose is to have a good time and spend time with family and friends, it designed the game to show the tragic effect that greed brings.
6. Heating with solar energy
Hungarian dr. Maria Telkes is responsible for the first solar heating system. In 1925, she moved to the United States and worked on a project that dealt exclusively with this issue. In 1940, it developed and made available the first solar heating system for households, and another successful woman - architect Eleanor Raymond - helped her realize the project.
7. Hand-held ice cream maker
Nancy Johnson invented it in 1943 the first hand-held ice cream maker. Her artificial freezer consisted of an outer wooden bucket, an inner tin cylinder and a paddle connected to a handle. To make ice cream, the outer bucket had to be filled with crushed ice, the inner roller with the ice cream mixture, and then the crank that stirred the mixture had to be manually turned.
8. Beer
Although we cannot say with certainty who really was the first to produce the kind of beer we drink today, the information obtained by historians says that it was a woman. 7000 years ago in Mesopotamia, women led the production of beer. It was a skill that only women knew. Beer was considered a godsend back then, and judging by its popularity today, it remains one of the most popular drinks of all time, all thanks to the hardworking hands of women.
9. Fire escapes
The first fire escape on the outside of the building, which was supposed to facilitate evacuation in case of fire, was invented in 1897 by Anna Connally. They are her idea adopted by many architects and this idea has persisted to this day.
10. Body armor
believe it or not protective ballistic vest, better known as a bulletproof vest, is invented by a woman. Her name is Stephanie Kwolek, and the research she did led to the invention of bulletproof vests or material, used in their production. She patented the invention in 1966. But that was not her only invention. In her rich, 40-year career, this inventor patented more than 40 different inventions and was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame.
