It’s a small yet very important safety mechanism that you might take for granted when it’s not raining or snowing, but the windshield wiper plays an essential role in driver visibility and sadly many people don’t know the story of the woman who invented it. Though we imagine no one would want to go without windshield wipers today, Mary Anderson’s contribution to the auto industry has largely gone unnoticed and without credit for over a century, and we’d like to change that right here, right now.
In winter 1903, Anderson took a trip to New York City which would inspire an invention that laid the groundwork for the modern-day windshield wiper. On her trip she saw a trolley car driver with the front window of his vehicle open because he couldn’t see. You can imagine that snow and cold air were likely blasting him in the face, but unfortunately he had to keep the window open because his visibility was hindered otherwise.
After witnessing this, Anderson got to thinking that vehicles should have some sort of mechanism to wipe away substances like snow, rain and dirt, so she came up with a draft for the very first windshield wiper. Anderson thought up a mechanism with a rubber blade that would attach to a vehicle’s window with an arm, and devised an idea for a spring device that would make the blade move left and right. Once she returned to her home in Alabama and finalized her idea, she took it to a shop and had a model created. She later patented the design.
Where her name gets left behind in history is following the 17-year patent, when automakers started adding windshield wipers to all vehicles, wipers that copied the fundamentals of her design. Anderson had previously made an attempt to sell her wipers to a Canadian company while the patent was still active, however the company replied, "we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale."
Of course, they turned out to be wrong, and so Ms. Anderson’s invention was essentially usurped and her name was lost in history. Check out a copy of her original patent below and take a moment to give thanks to the inventor who vastly improved comfort and safety for millions of drivers.
