Mary Anderson was born in Alabama months after the tragedy of the Civil War. She helped her state rebuild, then went on to create windshield wipers — long before auto titans realized the potential.
Mary Anderson cleared glass windshields and broke glass ceilings. The southern belle, born in Alabama in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, gave the world one of its most widely used safety devices. Anderson patented windshield wipers. She was, in many ways, a real-life Scarlett O’Hara of 'Gone with the Wind' movie fame. MEET THE AMERICAN WHO COOKED UP KETCHUP, DR.
Anderson was born to means on a southern plantation but raised in a society devastated by war. It was also a society that suffered a tragic loss of human capital. Male capital. More than 1 in 5 military-age men in the Confederacy were killed in the Civil War, according to several sources. Southerners responded with indomitable spirit. Anderson was among a new era of entrepreneurs and innovators burning with determination to overcome adversity.
The Anderson women moved to Birmingham and entered the real-estate business, building the Fairmont Apartments at the corner of 21st Street and Highland Avenue. Mary Anderson also sought adventure and/or fortune out west. In 1893, at age 27, she moved to Fresno, California, where she spent several years managing a vineyard and cattle ranch before returning to Birmingham. She also visited New York City in late 1902 and experienced northern weather, apparently for the first time.
It is simply necessary for to take hold of the handle and turn it in one direction or the other to clean the pane,' reads the patent application. 'Similar devices had been made earlier,' Lemelson-MIT noted. But Anderson’s 'was the first that actually worked.' Anderson's wiper worked. But it didn't sell. The inventor 'was teased and laughed at by many people because of her idea for the windshield wipers,' said MIT-Lemelson.
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