In 1992, Mary V. Zeller, Ph.D., joined NASA to develop thin film sensors for aircraft and spacecraft. Zeller, a chemist, produced diamond films, oil-free turbomachinery, satellite lubrication, and helped establish a world-class research facility at NASA Glenn to study chemicals, metals, polymers, ceramics, and semiconductors with cutting-edge technologies such as optical, x-ray, and electron spectroscopy equipment.
American inventor Maria Beasley successfully marketed at least fifteen of her own inventions, ranging from a foot-warmer to a device that kept trains from derailing.
When Thomas Lyle Williams was nineteen, he saw his sister Mabel using a homemade concoction of petroleum jelly, coal dust, and burnt cork to darken her eyelashes. The results were commercially manufactured mascara, and his company, Maybelline, was named for his sister.
While William Moulton Marston is credited as the creator of Wonder Woman, his wife Elizabeth and their polyamorous partner Olive Byrne were highly influential in her development, to the point that when Marston first raised the idea of creating a comic book hero, Elizabeth reportedly said, “Fine—but make her a woman.”
In 1888, inventor Ellen Eglin sold the rights to a clothes wringer she had designed to an agent for $18 (around $570 today). “If it was known that a negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer,” she explained in an 1891 interview.
Socialite Caresse Crosby got so fed up with her corset at age nineteen that she stitched together the first modern bra on the spot. In 1914, she patented her “backless brassiere,” selling it to Warner Brothers Corset Company for just $1,500.
Inventor of the board game Monopoly
1978 National Inventor of the Year (US) Barbara Askins waited until her children were in school to finish her chemistry Bachelors and Masters degrees, then went on to work for NASA, developing a new way to process film using radioactive materials. The astronomical and geological images she worked on held much more detail, making them significantly more valuable to scientists, and her process was also applied to x-rays and restoration of old photos.
Martha Coston worked for 10 years to perfect and then patent her late husband’s idea for a pyrotechnic flare.
Rocket scientist Yvonne Brill did brilliant work in rocket propulsion and invented the electrothermal hydrazine thruster (used in controlling satellites), improving both engine performance and propulsion reliability.