In 1903, it did not occur to anyone that rain on a moving vehicle's windshield was a problem that could be stopped. It was something drivers simply accepted and dealt with in their own different
ways.
A young woman named Mary Anderson changed all that with her invention of the windshield wiper. The idea came into her mind as she traveled from her home town of Birmingham Alabama to New York City. When Mary Anderson arrived to New York, the weather was very bad. She noticed that drivers kept stopping their cars and getting out to remove snow and ice from the windshields.
Mary Anderson was granted her first patent for a window-cleaning device in November of 1903. Her invention could clean snow, rain, or sleet from a windshield by using a handle inside the car. Similar devices had been made earlier but hers was the first one that really worked.
At the time she applied for her patent, cars were not very popular and people laughed at Mary’s idea. Many felt the movement of the windshield wipers would distract the drivers and cause many accidents.
However, that laughter did not last long. By 1913, thousands of people were driving their own cars, and mechanical windshield wipers were standard equipment. Now, a century later, it's almost impossible to imagine what drivers would ever do without windshield wipers.
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
