Mary Anderson
Invention: WINDSHIELD WIPER While on a visit to New York City at the turn of the 19th centuryMary Anderson was sightseeing in an electric-powered streetcar. The vehicle was regarded as an engineering feat: a car that was inexpensive to run, fast, and a convenient means of transportation. While riding in the streetcar, a snowstorm erupted and soon visibility was so reduced that the vehicle's conductor had to lean out and periodically brush away the snow that kept piling on to the windshield. there had to be a better way. To Mary Anderson, there hafd to be a better solution. On June 18, 1903,she she filed a patent with the U.S.Patent Office for a "window-cleaning device.'' She described her device as "a simple mechanism for removing snow, rain and sleet from the glass in front of a motorman." This prototype would consist of a wiper mounted on the outside of the windshield that moved by means of a a handle. Her patent application described the wiper as using a "rubber T, adapted to sweep across and clean the window-pane." This would in turn be adapted to sweep across with a "yielding and uniform pressure upon the glass." This was achieved by a counterweight, a spin- dnd interlocks. Mary Anderson designed her windshield wiper to be "easily removable when not required, thus leaving nothing to mar the usual appearance ill me car during fair weather." Mary Anderson received received Patent Number 743,801 for her invention--a device that would someday be a standard feature on cars, trucks, buses, as well as airplanes and trains.
Automatic Windshield
In 1917 Charlotte Bridgewood would invent the automatic electrically powered windshield wiper that used a roller system.
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