This section began as a celebration of March and Women’s History Month; it continues as a regular feature because there are so many unrecognized women who have made major contributions to history.
Welcome to America Comes Alive!, a site I created to share little-known stories of America’s past.
These stories are about Americans—people just like you—who have made a difference and changed the course of history. Look around the site and find what inspires you.
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Women Inventors
If asked to name a woman inventor, could you? They are out there but male inventors have dominated for years. Until about 1840, only about 20 patents were issued to women. One 
speculation as to why so few women received patents has to do with women’s legal status in the 19th century. Because they had few legal rights, they would not stand to gain from the sale of any patent; those who did have worthy ideas tended to take out the patent under the names of their husband’s or father’s.
A turning point for women inventors came when women’s rights activists began to advocate for inclusion of a showcase for women within the exposition the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. A Centennial Women’s Executive Committee was established and a separate Women’s Pavilion was erected; women inventors with patents or pending patents were able to display their inventions. That year more than 75 women exhibited their inventions ranging from emergency flares, model interlocking bricks, a life-preserving mattress for steam-boats, and a tool for pulverizing rocks; these were shown alongside the more traditional fare of needlework, corsets, and household items.
This month’s American Snapshots e-letter features Mothers of Invention featuring three exceptional women inventors. You may visit the e-letter page directly or sign up for e-letter so you don’t miss future mailings: kate@americacomesalive.com
In addition, however, America Comes Alive has already featured several other important women inventors. Elsewhere on the website read about:
- Josephine Cochran who invented the dishwasher in 1886;
- Mary Anderson who invented the windshield wiper when she made a visit to NYC; the device became a standard item on cars after 1915.
- Mary Phelps Jacob who invented the brassiere in 1913, replacing the far less comfortable corsets stiffened with whale bone.
- Sarah Goode who invented an early form of a Murphy bed. This one could fold up to be a desk during the day. (On July 14, 1885, Sarah E. Goode, became the first African-American woman to be granted a patent by the U.S. Patent And Trademark Office.)
If you know of other women inventors, write me and I’ll track them down.
Brownie Wise (1913-1992), Marketing and Sales Expert
Brownie Wise (1913-1992), Marketing and Sales Expert
- First woman to be featured on the cover of Business Week (1954)
Almost every American home has plastic storage containers for leftover food or homemade goodies. In some cases, the containers are Tupperware; in other cases they are products imitating this category leader that became popular in the 1950s.
Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966), Journalist and Labor Activist
• Honored by the United Auto Workers (1961) as a recipient of the first UAW Social Justice Award for her work as a labor journalist in the 1920s and ‘30s
Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819-1883), Successful Entrepreneur
Offered help and advice to women re: health issues during an era when male doctors did not take women’s health issues seriously.
Helen Gahagan Douglas (1900-1980) Actress Turned Congressperson
Elected as Democratic National Committeewoman from California- Elected to the House of Representatives in 1944, becoming only one of nine women to serve in the House at that time.
Helen Gahagan Douglas was born in 1900 and was raised in a well-to-do family in Brooklyn, New York. She was not a serious student but loved acting, and by the age of 22 she had been cast in a lead role on Broadway. She never returned to Barnard College where she had been a student.
Jackie Ormes (1911-1986), first African-American Female Cartoonist
Ormes’ comic strips were syndicated in black newspapers in the 1930s and ‘40s, making her the only nationally syndicated black woman cartoonist until the 1990s.
Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964), Educator, Scholar, and Activist
One of the most prominent African-American scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries- gave voice to African-Americans, from the end of slavery to the civil rights movement
- Only woman of any color to be quoted in the current edition of the U.S. Passport
