A traffic jam in snow inspired the invention of windshield wiper

Can you imagine a car without a windshield wiper? Yes, we are talking about the very object that is used to keep away dust/ dirt or clear raindrops or snow from an automobile’s windshield. It may look like a simple pivoting arm with a rubber blade, but we all know how important it is for a safe commute. In fact, windscreen wiper (yes, it’s also called that!) has quite a fascinating backstory. Read on to know more.  

Alabama woman stuck in New York City traffic 
It is hard to imagine a world where automobiles didn’t have windshield wipers. But guess what? Mary Anderson, an Alabama-based woman who was visiting New York City in 1902 did live in that world and if she was alive, she would tell you how difficult it made her commute one evening.  

It was snowing in the Lower Manhattan region of New York City and Anderson was riding a taxi. Her destination was the famous Broadway Theatre for an evening show of a brand-new movie. However, she got very late because her driver had to get out of the car and clean off the windshield every few minutes that too amidst a never-ending traffic. This tedious task not only made Anderson miss the beginning of her film but also piqued her innovative mind.  

Back home, Anderson couldn’t stop thinking about that evening and kept wondering what if there was a sort of a blade-like device that would wipe off the windscreen without making the driver get out of the car every now and then.  

This is when she asked her teenage daughter to draw a sketch as she described it. She also made her write a description of it below. Thus, the first ever windshield wiper was conceived. It was a handle with a rubber blade that would be operated from inside a car’s vestibule by a simple switch. Simple yet effective! Oh, and it was detachable too, allowing drivers to remove it during fair weather. This would ensure that the appearance of the cars won’t be hampered either.  

Anderson gets due credit 
As it turns out, Anderson named her commonplace object the Window Cleaning Device and even received a US patent for the same in November 1903. However, even after several attempts, automobile manufacturing firms refused to purchase her rights. While most stated that they didn’t see any practical or commercial value to it, many historians suggest that they refused to interact with a woman in what was primarily a male-dominated domain. The good news however is that she kept trying and just before death, her patent was sold to the Tri Continental Corporation in 1917. In fact, they were the ones to first commercially produce windscreen wipers named ‘Rain Rubber’. Anderson may not have earned much money or fame for her invention but she sure got credit when she was incorporated into the Inventor Hall of Fame. Better late than never, right?