Essential Tech And Automotive Innovations By Women

Were you aware that a large number of the innovations utilized in the automotive industry today were invented by women? Women have had, and still have, a significant influence on the automotive sector. Let's look into their contributions and how they have revolutionized the automotive industry.

Car heating system

It is believed that Margaret A. Wilcox, who was born in Chicago in 1838, is the creator of car heating. Her invention of an automobile heating system was patented on November 28, 1893, after she submitted an application for a patent in the fall of 1893. Her system included heated water fed through a network of pipes beneath the passenger compartment and a combustion chamber under the vehicle. This significant development for the automotive industry accomplished two goals at once: it made driving in chilly and foggy conditions easier by maintaining the interior temperature of the car at the desired level and preventing fogging of the windows.


Road signs

Road signs designed by British typographer and graphic designer Margaret Calvert and her colleague Jock Kinneir were widely used, initially in the United Kingdom before being adopted and distributed globally.

Their job was to make these signs as clear and simple to understand as possible at first glance. For nearly a decade, the team worked on the signs' shape, pictograms, and lettering.

Turn signal

Florence Lawrence, a Canadian film star in the early twentieth century, is remembered for inventing what some consider to be the forerunner of the turn signal. In 1914, she proposed installing an auto-signaling arm at the rear of a car, which would be controlled by buttons near the driver's seat.

The system would raise the arm to the left or right to indicate the direction the vehicle was about to turn. Years later, this evolved into the turn signal.


Interior rearview mirror
Englishwoman Dorothy Levitt, who enjoyed flying and racing cars, wrote a brief handbook for female drivers in 1909. Among her many suggestions, she suggested always having a portable mirror so you could occasionally see what's behind you.
This suggestion gave rise to the idea of the rearview mirror. After making its debut at the 1911 Indianapolis 500, the actual rearview mirror was eventually modified for use in production vehicles.

Windshield wipers

American inventor Mary Anderson filed the first patent application for the windshield wiper in 1903. It was a mechanized arm with a crank and a basic rubber pad that was controlled by a lever, allowing the driver to use it without getting out of the car.

Due to the integration of tiny electric motors, the system was not fully embraced by automakers until much later and did not become automatic until the 1920s.