Thomas Edison. Ben Franklin. Eli Whitney. Leonardo da Vinci. These are all famous male inventors and, to hear it told, you'd think they were the only inventors, ever. However, a great many women have impacted the world in ways many of us have never even heard of. There are so many meaningful women who have made important inventions; I always find it a shame that they're rarely as highlighted as their male counterparts. So, forget that: here are some of the best female inventors, and what they created.
Image source: geology.ucdavis.edu
Madame Marie Curie is probably the most well known of the best female inventors out there, and with good reason. Some people don't understand why essentially inventing radioactivity, or at least harnessing its use, is so important, but when you look to modern day medicine, it's easy to understand. Perhaps even more importantly, this woman is still a beacon to all girls that it's okay to be different, to be into science, and that you don't need to listen to those myths – which still exist today – that medicine is an entirely male dominated world.
Image source: fishup.ru
Beautiful Hedy is predominantly known for being a star of the silver screen, but that was only one of her talents. Believe it or not, she is largely responsible for the Allies winning World War II, and is also largely responsible for the spread spectrum which today allows for radio transmissions and the like. Ms. Lamarr invented a system that allowed the Allied soldiers to communicate in top secret code, keeping their plans and strategies secret from the enemy.
Image source: georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu
You know that phrase, “behind every great man is an even better woman,” right? Well, many of the best female inventors prove that statement is true at least some of the time, and Catherine Greene is one of them. It is been proven pretty successfully that she gave Eli Whitney the idea for the cotton gin, and actually improved his original design, which included faulty wooden teeth.
Image source: a1.ro
We have Bette Graham to think of White Out and correction tape. Her life path led her to become a secretary, but she was allegedly an awful typist. Having wanted to be an artist, she knew that painters used gesso to fix mistakes, and that idea led her to creating a corrective kind of “paint” to fix her typing mistakes. She inevitably built the Liquid Paper Corporation.
Image source: a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net
Margaret Knight is more than just one of the best female inventors ever. She was also known as “the female Edison,” and since she applied for and received approximately 26 different patents, it's easy to see why. She basically invented window frames and sashes, a machine that made it easier to cut out the soles of shoes, and even improved the entire idea of the internal combustion engine. Not only that, but she's the reason brown paper bags are folded the way they're folded today.
Image source: coachingmagazineinternational.com
Police offers and the like will certainly appreciate this lady as one of the greatest inventors ever, since she's responsible for Kevlar. She worked as a chemist for DuPont, and ultimately discovered the fiber used in the material. Naturally, bullet proof vests are the most well known Kevlar items; those alone are something for which we can all be grateful.
Image source: visualphotos.com
Gertrude is an important inventor because she has discovered several important medical drugs. In fact, she is credited for creating two of the very first and most successful medications used for leukemia. She also invented drugs used to prevent kidney rejections in transplants, and an antiviral agent used in the treatment of herpes virus infections.
There are so many amazing lady inventors out there, that it is hard to come up with a list of the very best female inventors. I know that I've missed more than a few, many of whom I may not even be know about. So clue me in, who are your favorite female inventors?
Top Photo Credit: futuristspeaker.com