Mothers of Invention . . . Really

Women & Hi Tech

6 May 2003

Jennifer Kurtz

Domestic Engineers• In 1809, Mary Dixon Kies received the first U. S. patent issued to a

woman– Process for weaving straw with silk or thread– First Lady Dolly Madison praised her for boosting the nation’s hat industry– Patent file was destroyed in the great Patent Office fire in 1836– Until about 1840, only 20 other patents were issued to women (related to

apparel, tools, cook stoves, fireplaces)• Mary Potts and Mrs. Potts’ Cold Handle Sad Iron patented in 1870

• Or was Mrs. Samuel Slater first with patent for sewing thread made of cotton?

• Or Catherine Greene in 1792 for cotton gin?• In 1845, Sarah Mather received a patent for the invention of a

submarine telescope and lamp– Permitted sea-going vessels to survey the depths of the ocean

• In 1850, Margaret Knight invented a stop-motion device– Age 12– Square-bottomed paper bag

Domestic Engineers (cont’d)• Automatic machine for washing dishes by Mrs. W. A. Cockran (Shelbyville,

IN) in 1889– Steam motor– Electric in 1906

• 1896, “scientific” cooking by Fannie Farmer• Bissell carpet cleaner by Anna Bissell• Six models of the automatic washing machine by Margaret Colvin• Drip coffee by Melitta Bentz (German)• Disposable diaper “The Boater” by Marion Donovan (1950s)• Safety auto seat and folding booster seat by Gertrude Muller (born 1887 in

Indiana)• Early 1920s, Kate Gleason developed the idea of mass-producing homes at

reasonable prices by using prefabricated wood forms to cast the concrete for the homes

• "Mistake Out" (AKA Liquid Paper) developed by Bette Nesmith Graham in 1956

– 50% of $50 million fortune to son and former Monkee Michael– Invested in Pacific Arts Studio, forerunner in production of video music

19th Century Recognition• 1844 test of telegraph line (Washington and Baltimore)

– “What hath God wrought?” suggested by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of Commissioner of patents

• 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition– World Fair-like event held to celebrate the amazing progress of the century-

old United States of America– Centennial Women’s Executive Committee was established, and a

separate Woman’s Pavilion erected– Scores of women inventors either with patents or with patents pending

displayed their inventions • National Federation of Women’s Clubs

– Edison’s first public demonstration of the Kinetescope in 1891• Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893

– Included a Woman’s Building• Unique safety elevator invented by multi-patent holder Harriet Tracy• Device for lifting and transporting invalids invented by Sarah Sands were among

the many items featured at this event

Frontier Technologies

• Aviation and Aeronautics• Chemistry - Materials

– Molecular Coatings – Kevlar

• Communications/IT• Life Sciences

– Birth to Death– Occupational Medicine– Chemical Building Blocks

• Physics– Radiation– Pulsars

Aviation and Aeronautics

Amelia Earhart1897 - 1937

Willa B. Brown1906 - 1992

Sally Ride

Katherine Burr Blodgett• First observation that monomolecular layers of

soaps could be deposited on metallic surfaces, and that successive layers could be added, layer by layer. Molecular coatings on surfaces is an entire field today; important in physics and applied physics, chemistry, surface science, biology, and medicine.

• Use of interference to extinguish reflections from glass. This utilized her previous experience building films of known thickness, such that reflected rays were greatly diminished by interference. This started the entire field of optical coatings, which are now used universally on eyeglasses, camera lenses, TVs, computer monitors, etc.

1898 – 1979

Coatings

Stephanie Kwolek

1923 –

Chemistry

• Created Kevlar in 1964 • Exceptionally resistant fiber of polyamide group• Polyparatheyleneterephthalamide• 17 patents at her retirement from DuPont• Bullet proof vests to canoes as well as: radial tires, skis, sails, tennis rackets, fiberoptic cables, brake pads (replacing asbestos), suits for firefighters, helmets, pieces of spacecraft and cut resistant gloves

Source: Great Modern Inventions by Gerald Messadie

Communications/IT• 1941 – Hedy Lamarr

– Classified communications system especially suitable for submarienes– System whereby the radio frequencies would change intermittently and simulatenously

between the transmitter and receiver in order to defeat enemy monitoring • 1971 - Erna Schneider Hoover ( B.A. with honors in medieval history and a Ph.D. in the

philosophy and foundations of mathematics) – Created a computerized telephone switching system that helped eliminate overloading

problems– Switching system used a computer to monitor incoming calls and then automatically adjusted

the call's acceptance rate– Awarded one of the first software patents ever issued

• 1999 - Randice-Lisa Altschul – Was issued a series of patents for the world's first disposable cell phone– Trademarked the Phone-Card-Phone®, the device is the thickness of three credit cards and

made from recycled paper products– Real cell phone (outgoing messages only) with entire phone body, touch pad and circuit

board made of paper substrate– Uses an elongated flexible circuit which will be one piece with the body of the phone, part of

the patented STTTM technology. The ultra thin circuitry is made by applying metallic conductive inks to paper

• 1859 and 1871 – Night Signals – Ships communicate messages

nocturnally– U. S. Navy bought the patent rights

to the flares– Various color combinations for ship-

to-shore and ship-to-ship communication

– System of bright, long-lasting signal flares revolutionized naval communication

– Also adopted by the governments of France, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Haiti

• As of late 1970s, Coston Supply Company still in business

Grace Murray Hopper

• Ironically, the Grace Murray Hopper Award Awarded to the outstanding young computer professional of the year, has gone to only two women since 1971:

Shafrira Goldwasser (1996) and Lydia Kavraki (2000)

• Selection is based on a single recent major technical or service contribution. A prize of $5000 is supplied by the UNISYS Corporation.

Sources: www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-h/g-hoppr.htmwww.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/hopper-story.html

1906 - 1992

COBOL

Life Sciences• Lydia E. Pinkham’s vegetable compounds• Anna Wessel Williams (1863-1954) discovered effective diphtheria immunization and

rabies vaccination • Florence Sabin (1871-1953) conducted pioneering research into blood processes

including discovery of the origin of red corpuscles• Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945) developed eyedropper that prevented needless

blinding of infants caused by improper administration of drops babies received to prevent gonorrheal infection

• Dorothy Mendenhall (1874-1964) identified the cell that causes Hodgkin’s disease; classmate of Florence Sabin

• Helen Brooke Taussig (1898-1986) co-developed “blue baby” operation in 1944 with Dr. Alfred Blalock

– Blalock and Taussig procedure paved way for open heart surgery– Taussig instrumental in blocking US use of Thalidomide

• Gladys Hobby (Columbia University, worked with two others after reading a 1940 report about Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery

– Within five weeks developed first ever treatment of patient with penicillin injection– Within six months had cured a patient

• Ruth Handler (1916-2002) developed the Barbie doll in 1959 and a prosthetic for post-mastectomy cancer patients in 1976

Virginia Apgar

• One of Columbia University's first female M.D.s (1933)

• 1949 became Columbia's first-ever full Professor of Anesthesiology

• "Apgar Score“– Assessing the health of newborn infants

(conceived in 1949, published in 1953)– Maximum score of 2 points each for 5 criteria:

respiratory effort, reflex irritability, muscle tone, heart rate, and color

– Lower score alerts obstetricians to the possibility of latent problems (e.g., hemorrhaging, asphyxia)

– Appointed Director of the March of Dimes in 1959

Newborn Scoring System

Alice Hamilton

• First woman professor at Harvard Medical School

• First woman to receive the Lasker Award in public health

• Occupational Disease Commission in Chicago– Connection between improper sewage

disposal and role of flies in transmitting typhoid fever

– Lead dust/other noxious chemicals and

unsafe conditions in workplace

• Born in NY and raised in Indiana

1869 – 1970Founder of

Occupational Medicine

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.

--Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Psychiatrist and Author of On Death and Dying and the 5-Stage Theory: DENIAL AND ISOLATION

ANGERBARGAININGDEPRESSIONACCEPTANCE

Rosalind Franklin

In April of 1953, James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins identified the substance of life -- the structure of DNA.

They later shared a Nobel Prize. Their discovery depended heavily on the work of a woman, chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose research was used without her knowledge or permission. Her photo showed, for the first time, the essential structure of DNA -- the double-helix shape, which also indicated its method of replication.

Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1956 at the age of 37, before the Nobel Prize was awarded to the three men.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/oct/darklady/

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, by Brenda Maddox

1920 - 1958

DNA Structure

Barbara McClintock

1902 – 1992

Genetic Transposition

• Work on broken chromosomes

• Chromosome as the basic unit of heredity

• With Harriet Creighton, demonstrated that genetic crossing over was accompanied by physical crossing over of the chromosomes

Source: www.cshl.org/public/mcclintock.html

• King's doctoral thesis in 1973 revolutionized evolutionary biology– In comparative study of proteins, proved human and chimpanzee

genomes are 99% identical– Places the divergence of the two species from a common ancestor at

about 5 million years ago (not 10 million years ago) • After 16 years studying DNA of families (is breast cancer hereditary?)

– Found Chromosome 17 after assessing 183 possible markers– Linked to a gene responsible for a number of different inherited breast

and ovarian cancers– The isolation of BRCA1 in 1994 has led in turn to direct diagnosis of

the 5-10% of all breast cancer that is hereditary• In 1984, King traveled to Argentina to help Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo

– Helped create a blood test (using genetic markers and mitochondrial DNA sequencing) that establishes with 99.9% grandparent/child relationship

– Over 50 families have been formally reunited• Laboratory is DNA identification base for the United Nations War Crimes

Tribunal

Mary-Claire King

Joanna S FowlerAdjunct Professor (Brookhaven National Laboratory)B.A., 1963, University of South Florida; Ph.D., 1967 University of Colorado; Postdoctoral Fellow,1968, University of East Anglia, England. Senior Chemist, Brookhaven National Laboratory.Jacob Javits Investigator Award in the Neurosciences, 1986, 1993; Gustavus John Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest, 1988; Brookhaven Lab's R&D Award, 1994; Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine, 1997; Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal, 1998. DOE Ernest O. Lawrence Award, 1999.

Brain Imaging

“Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a medical imaging method which uses radiotracers to track biochemical transformations as well as the movement of drugs in the living human and animal body. . . PET has been of particular value in the study of addiction because it allows us to image the distribution and movement of drugs as well as the effects of drugs on the brain.”

Rachel Carson

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us,the less taste we shall have for destruction."

-- Rachel Carson © 1954

1907-1964

Writer, Scientist, Ecologist

Jocelyn Bell Burnell• Burnell shared the prestigious

Michelson Award with her former graduate advisor Hewish in 1973– Nobel Committee did not

acknowledge her role in the discovery of pulsars in 1974

• Awarded Sir Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics

• Ryle for his observations and inventions... and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars".

• Many distinguished astronomers including Sir Frederick Hoyle, Thomas Gold, and Jeremiah Ostriker have expressed the view that Burnell should have been awarded the Nobel Prize with Hewish and Ryle

Pulsars

Discovered first four pulsars (pulsating radio sources “viewed” through radio telescope): rapidly rotating neutron stars.

1943 –

Edith Quimby• Radiation Therapy - First to determine the distribution

of the radiation doses in tissue from various arrangements of radium needles (effective dosage levels)

– Radium was widely used to treat cancer– Radium-containing needles were applied to tumors in a

makeshift fashion, with no certainty that the tumors received the required exposures

– Techniques she described in 1932 for choosing the most effective grouping of radium needles were widely adopted in the United States and served as the forerunner of Parker and Paterson's Manchester system

• Radiation Physics - pioneered the concept of the relative biological effectiveness of radiation (RBE)

– Quantified the different doses from beta and gamma radiation required to produce the same biological effect such as skin eryhtma (i.e., reddening of the skin)

– Concept is still employed by radiobiologists and served as the basis for the quality factor used to convert an absorbed dose measured in rad (or gray) to a dose equivalent in rem (or sievert)

1891 – 1982Radiology

Trends – Innovation/Patents• The women inventor patent share of annually granted U.S. origin patents

rose from 2.6 percent in 1977 to 10.3 percent in 1998. • The majority of the U.S. origin woman-inventor patents are in the chemical

technologies. • In 1996, 11.2 percent of the U.S. origin patent grants which were owned by

the Federal Government at the time of grant included a woman inventor. • In the past 20 years, about 83 percent of the U.S. origin patent grants to

women were for utility patents, 16.5 percent for design patents, and 0.5 for plant patents.

• About 35 percent of the U.S. origin women inventors patents granted during the 1977 to 1996 period originated from California, New York, or New Jersey.

• Today, hundreds of thousands of women apply for and receive a patent every year. So the real answer to the question "how many women inventors are there?" is more than you can count and growing. About 20% of all inventors are currently female and that number should quickly rise to 50% over the next generation.

Sources: www.mcgrawhill.ca/school/subjects/technological+education

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwomeninventors.htm

Trends – Innovation

• 20 scientists to watch in the next 20 years– 45% women– Discover Magazine October 2000 survey of

almost 1,000 researchers for nominations of persons under 40 in the United States who have demonstrated once-in-a-generation insight

Nobel Laureates

• Chemistry – 3– Marie Curie in 1911 (radium and polonium)– Irene Joliot-Curie* in 1935 (synthesizing radioactive

elements)– Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin in 1964 (Xray to study

natural substances)

• Physics – 2– Marie Sklodowska Curie* in 1903 (radiation

phenomena)– Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 (nuclear shell

structure)

Nobel Laureates (cont’d)

• Medicine, Physiology – 6– Gerty Theresa Cori* in 1947 (catalytic

conversion of glycerin)– Rosalyn Sussman Yalow in 1977

(radioimmunoassay in investigative medicine)– Barbara McClintock in 1983 (genetics)– Rita Levi-Montalcini in 1986 (cell growth)– Gertrude B. Elion in 1988 (drug treatment)– Christiane Nusslein-Volhard in 1995 (genetics

in early embryo development)

Trends – Commercialization• Fortune Magazine (April 15, 2002) top 50 women in business

– VP and above– 12 from high tech companies

• J. Carly Fiorina - #1 – HP (28th on list)• Meg Whitman – # 3 – eBay • Anne Mulcahy - #6 – Xerox (120th on list)• Karen Katen - # 7 – Pfizer (49th on list; 5th MP)• Pat Russo - #15 – Lucent Technologies (76th on list )• Betsy Bernard - #16 – AT&T (15th on list; 7th MP)• Judy Lewent - #21 – Merck (24th on list; 9th MP)• Ann Livermore - #23 – HP (28th on list)• Doreen Toben - #25 – Verizon (11th on list)• Susan Arnold - #32 – P&G (35th on list; 25th MP)• Deb Henretta - #34 – P&G (35th on list; 25th MP)• Anne Stevens - #41 – Ford Motor (4th on list)• Louise Francesconi - #45 – Raytheon (119th on list)

Louise Francesconi• Louise Francesconi

Company: Raytheon Title: VP; President, Missile Systems Age: 49

An August reorganization at Raytheon gave her a new title but kept her the go-to woman in defense. As head of the company's $3 billion missile business (the largest in the world), Francesconi supplied the laser-guided bombs used against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Resources

• Women In Technology International (WITI)– The WITI Hall of Fame was established in 1996 by WITI to

recognize, honor, and promote the outstanding contribution women make to the scientific and technological communities that improve and evolve our society.

• Women in Technology Network• Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles,

and Momentous Discoveries, Second Edition Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

• Great Modern Inventions, by Gerald Messadie• Biography Magazine• Historical First Patents: The First US Patent for Many

Everyday Things, by Travis Brown