The inventor of the windshield wiper, Mary Anderson, was born today, February 19, 1866. She made our lives a little bit better in a way we don’t often think much about.
I certainly took my windshield wipers for granted until a few days ago. On my way to work, the driver’s-side wiper blade caught something and became dislodged from its hook and came to rest on my hood. I figured I could pull over and get it, but then a few seconds later it flew off out into the slushy road. Crap! Well, no matter, I thought. I’ll get another one later. Right then, of course, as I’m slowing down to enter a rotary, all the wet snow that had been sitting on top of my car decided to slide right down onto my windshield, because of course it did. And I mean ALL of it. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, not with that useless bare hook waving at me. I did make it to work OK, but not without a brand new appreciation for Mary Anderson’s windshield wiper.
Mary Anderson was always a go-getter. Her father died when she was just four, but she lived with strong women. Mary, her sister Fannie, and her mother left rural Greene County, Alabama, headed to Birmingham, and “soon after their arrival” built and managed the Fairmont Apartments on Highland Avenue. Don’t ask me how they pulled that off. Mary’s aunt would move in later, and with a trunk full of gold jewelry that kept the family well-off for a long time. Don’t ask me where all that jewelry came from, either.
Mary left Alabama at age 27 to go run a cattle ranch and vineyard in Fresno, California. Women just didn’t do that sort of thing very often in 1893. She returned to live in Birmingham in 1900 when her aunt fell ill, but one winter day in 1902 she happened to be visiting New York City, and it was there that the invention muse struck her.
She was riding in a trolley car in the sleet, and it was a frustrating ride. I’m sure she had someplace to be, but every single minute, the driver had to either get out of the car to clean off the windshield or else open up the side window to look out, blasting all the passengers with cold, wet air. That was just accepted practice at that time, but Mary didn’t accept it. She started sketching out plans right there on the trolley, and by June she had refined her design to the point where she applied for a patent, which was granted that November. A few others had previously laid out designs that didn’t work reliably, but Mary’s design did.
She described her invention this way:
It wasn’t quite clear at the turn of the century how popular automobiles would become, or what accessories people would want, and so she got letters like this from firms she solicited (I can’t properly show the photo without permission from the Birmingham Public Library, but the link will take you right to that):
Dear Madam,
We beg to acknowledge receipt of your recent favor with reference to the sale of your patent. In reply we regret to state that we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale. […]
Yours truly,
DINNING & ECKENSTEIN
“We do not consider it to be of … commercial value.” Hmmph. Many people said Mary’s crazy design would distract drivers, cause accidents, be unsightly.
The windshield wiper would not become standard equipment in automobiles until after Anderson’s patent expired. Cadillac was the first to make them so in 1922. It is thought that she never profited from her invention.
Mary Anderson remained in Birmingham (except summers up in Tennessee with Fannie and her family) and continued to manage the Fairmont Apartments until her death in 1953 at the age of 87.
As Anderson’s great-great niece Sara-Scott Wingo tells it:
[Wingo] said Anderson was a “vivacious, progressive woman,” a developer as well as inventor, who was self-supporting throughout her life and later cared for her niece's children[.]
She lived a full life, but never married. “She always appeared in pictures with a wide smile,” Wingo said. “I'm told she had plenty of suitors, but rejected them all.”
She is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham:
Although she didn’t receive many accolades during her lifetime, we certainly appreciate her invention now, even if we don’t realize who was responsible. Someone who was just way ahead of her time.
There is at least one cultural reference to her invention that I am aware of. In 2006, Marge Simpson mentions that a woman invented the windshield wiper in The Simpsons episode “Girls Just Want To Have Sums” (Season 17, Episode 19) at about 7:40. You can see this in the (for-some-reason-mirror-image) video here. I understand she is also the answer to the Trivial Pursuit question, “Who invented the windshield wiper?”
In 2011, Mary Anderson finally got some of the credit she deserved. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.