Born: 1913 or 1914, Japan
Died: 1959
Country most active: Japan
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
In the 1950s, a Toshiba salesman started asking housewives what would make their lives easier. They reported that their most onerous task was cooking rice three times a day, but this wasn’t a priority for the company because Mitsubishi and Matsushita (the future Panasonic) had already failed at building an automatic machine. The male decision-makers also believed any woman willing to give up the requisite time, effort, and sleep required to prepare perfect rice was a “failed housewife” anyway—never mind that the purpose of all appliances is to make life easier. Married couple Yoshitada Minami and Fumiko combined his mechanical knowledge and her rice-cooking skills to create a working version. Within the year, Toshiba was producing 200,000 rice cookers every month, sparking a manufacturing war.