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Salute to Women Inventors · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just gonna play
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: a rousing version of Yankee to do Old Landy or
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: something like that in the background of this stirring episode.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You got a.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Picklo, No, I'm just gonna go like this. I'll record
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: a track of do Do Do Do Do Do Do
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Do Do Do and we'll play that on a loop
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: underneath us talking. Jerry said she can do it with editning.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure this would be an all time great Okay.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: The reason I want to do that is because as
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I was reading this, I was what's the word I'm
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: looking for? I'm toying with enthused. That's not it. That
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: sounds like the opposite of how I feel. It is inspiring,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: but also like, it's just cool that there's this un Well,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: in a way, it's not cool. It's cool to discover
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: this whole group, this whole cadre of inventors that just
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: are overlooked. That's the uncool part. They've been overlooked. For
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: so long. But there's a bunch of women inventors here
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: in America and around the world presumably, but we're just
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: talking about American ones today that really made some amazing contributions,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: and especially at first for the first significant amount of time,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: they really had an uphill battle to get their invention
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: like out there because of just how generally mistreated women were.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, here's a fairly horrifying stat because it was
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: not that long ago, but in the late twentieth century,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: only about ten percent of all patents were awarded to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: women and their inventions. And we're going to talk about
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: some of the reasons before we get going on highlighting
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: some of these great inventions and some of these great women.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: But one reason is just a lot of times, if
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you were a woman and you had an invention, you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: had to file it at least the patent under your
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: husband's name, or your brother's or your father's name, or
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: any man in your life that was willing to sign
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: on the dotted line saying yeah, that's my idea, because
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you can't. You can't grant intellectual property or a patent
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to my sister or wife or daughter.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, remember in the Widow's episode we talked about coverture,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: which was a woman was either essentially an extension of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: her father while she lived with her parents or her
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: husband after she got married and could not she had
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: no property rights. If you have no property rights, you
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: can't own intellectual property, and therefore you can't have a
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: patent on anything, because that, by definition gives you intellectual property.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And that was a huge deal for a while. In
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: addition to that, because women were just generally treated, they
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: also didn't have access to schooling or education, especially technical
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: education that would kind of help those who were already
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: inventive by nature to actually like blossom.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and what an incentive is there too? If you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: know that you can't get a patent for something, it's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: gonna dull your inspiration to go out and try and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: invent something to begin with, because what's the point. I mean, sure,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: there's a point to inventing things because you might make
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the world better, But I think a lot of the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: drive for invention is also to do with like money,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: having something in your name and making money on it.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, But yeah, having something in your name
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I think is a more sentimental way to put it,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: for sure, But it does deter it, and I'm sure
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: that was part of the whole thing. I mean, at
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the very least, women weren't seen as a group that needed,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: that should be encouraged to pursue these kind of things,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: if not actively discouraged, and some women face that. There
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: was actually I didn't know about this, but at the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Seneca Falls convey and then the suffrage movement that followed,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: there were a couple of competing groups that were like,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: we really need to put all of our time and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: effort behind suffrage, like giving women the right to vote.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: That needs to be our focus. We need to say,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: laser focus on that, because that's important. That's the one
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: you think of when you think of the women's rights
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: movement of the nineteenth century. But there's a other group
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: economic feminists that were like, hey, you can have all
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the voting rights you want in the world, but if
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you don't have any means of being self sufficient, if
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: you need to be it, it doesn't add up to
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: a hill of beans. I think that was their slogan.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a woman named Charlotte Smith who, like
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you said, she was like, you know, if we want
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: to make real advances, then how about and she eventually
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: came to the invention part of it, but how about
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: property rights and intellectual property rights? And then starting in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, she really focused in on inventors and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: invention and getting patents and getting the patent Office to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: just simply recognize the fact that women were starting to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: get patents. Was took nine years. It was in I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: believe eighteen seventy nine she moved to DC started hassling
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the Patent Office to say, hey, here's all I want.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Just give me a list of women inventors period. I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: think it could inspire other women. We could publish it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So if you could just put together that list, you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: got the list, put it together for me, and they
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: said sure. Nine years later they came back with women
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: as well. I think she packaged it, but women inventors
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to whom patents have been granted, And in eighteen eighty
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: eight she published it five hundred copies worth, and that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sure was a big game changer as far as like, hey,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: look it's happening, it's possible, you can do it.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, And while that did kind of open up the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: floodgates two women inventors seeing like I can do this,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: there is like a path for me here to take
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: toward inventing. There were women who did have patents in
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: their name prior to this. It was just extremely rare.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, well there were how many were there?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Did it? I thought there was a list here?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the only one that I've come across. I
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: never saw the list of women inventors to whom patents
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: have been granted, but I did see one. I think
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the first American woman to earn a patent in her
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: name was named Mary Dixon keys Ki Ees.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was the first one about ninety years earlier.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: But it supposedly took four clerks ten days to put
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this list together, So you know, it was a great
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: thing that Charlotte Smith did. She had a vision that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: this could be a game changer, and it seems like
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it probably was.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She was like, you can't hide the truth any
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: longer with your Walrus mustaches and your arm guarters. Give
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: me that list, and they did.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So should we highlight some of these? These are pretty great?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: All right, Well let's take a break after this first one,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: maybe because I want I'm eager to talk about Marie
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Van Britton Brown. She was awesome. She was born in
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, an
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: African American woman who worked as a nurse and oftentimes
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was working you know, late night shifts, coming and going
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: at odd hours. Her husband, Albert Brown, was an electronics technician.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: He had odd hours of work too, So how that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: shakes out is a lot of times Marie van Britton
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Brown would be at home or come home late at night,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: be a little worried, and you know, what was a
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: rough neighborhood at the time as to who may become
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a knocking on her door. So she invented along with
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: her husband's help, but it ended up being kind of
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the first closed circuit TV system and home security system
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It was a bunch of different
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: systems that they put together to create this one complete
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: system pretty much out of the box. It was like
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a complete security system. But they really had to work
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: with a lack of technology at the time, Like there
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: was no way to pan the video camera that the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: whole thing was based on. So instead they had four
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: separate peopoles and you could raise or lower the camera
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: to the correct peopole depending on the height of the
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: person on the other side.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I find that ingenius, great idea, I said, CCTV. So
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: there were television monitors. This camera fed into these monitors.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So the idea is that you didn't actually have to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: go to the door. And even looking through a peepole
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: can be dangerous if someone knows you're just on the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: other side of the door at that people, they can
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: get you.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: That's what it saysn't the patent application, that's what it said.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: So she had to a remote control that would let
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: her unlock the door from a distance away, and an
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: emergency button a distance away that would alert the police
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: or security in the apartment building. You had these four
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: peep holes, this sliding camera, and two way microphones, so
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: she could actually say, like who's you know, basically what
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: we have now with like ring doorbells and nest doorbells. Yeah,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: she thought of this idea and her husband helped her
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: pull it off in nineteen sixty six.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the idea of just how ubiquitous this has become.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: This is like such a commonplace everyday thing now is
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: kind of a testament to what she invented because at
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: the time This was completely revolutionary. There was nothing like
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: this at the time, and she and her husband just
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: invented it from whole cloth. And I think they got
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: patent number three million, four hundred and eighty two thousand
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: and thirty seven. That was the US patent for their
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: closed circuit television security system.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: That's right. She also got an award from the National
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Scientist Committee. She was recognized in The Times, the paper
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: of record. Sadly she passed away in nineteen ninety nine
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: at the age of seventy six. But it was such
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a good idea that thirty two subsequent patent applications referenced
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: her original invention and their patent application. So, in other words,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: great idea.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, you want to take that break, now, let's
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: do it. Okay, we'll be right back.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And in things.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Job in job, okay, chuck. So up next, we're going
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: to talk about a woman named Josephine Cochrane who kind
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: of bucked the trend of inventors and was a wealthy
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: socialite and supposedly the origin of her invention, the dishwasher,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: the first actual useful dishwasher, came from dismay that her
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: servants washing her fine china that had been in her
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: family since the seventeenth century, that it was getting chipped,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: and so at first she's like, give me that, I'll
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: do this, And then she was like, oh, doing the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: dishes really sucks. There's got to be a better way.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: And she put it off to the side for a while.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: But then her husband died and left her and her
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: family in debt, and she decided to bring that idea
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: off of the shelf and invent her way out of debt.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what she did.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, you mentioned this was the first sort
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of really practical usable dishwasher. There had been other attempts,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: but you know, there litle clunky literally clunky. They were
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing where like you turn a crank
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: on the side and the dishes are jumbling around. Yeah,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: well they would break and chip. And she was like, well, listen,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: this is my original problem is that I have chip
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: dishes here, So why don't we do something mechanical that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you don't crank and move those dishes around. She very smartly,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: at least for her, because she was making something for herself.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: She measured her dishes and made sure that each compartment
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: fit the dishes very well and stayed in place. Like
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I said, I don't know that she had the idea
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: that this is going to be a big mass marketed product.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Yet she's just trying to solve her problem. And she
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: had a motor powered wheel above a boiler spring soapy
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: water on dishes and got it patent on December twenty eighth,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, kids, you just imagine the person who came over
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: that hand crank dishwasher demonstrating it, and you can just
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: hear all the dish yeah, breaking inside, frank in it.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: They're like, I'm sure they're fine in there. This is
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: what it sounds like when they're being washed.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It rarely happens that way.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: So the eighteen ninety three World's Fair in Chicago, the
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: White City where the Devil in the White City is set,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: that was a huge kind of like introduction of women
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: inventors in the United States to the world, and Josephine
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Cochrane was one of them. She debuted her dishwasher at
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: the eighteen ninety three World's Fair and actually won a
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: World's Fair award. So I abbreviated this and I don't
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: remember exactly how it goes. But it has to do
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: with mechanical construction, durability and adapted to its line of work.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Oh great, so she knocked out all four of those boxes. Or,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to put briefly, best mech construct durable and adapt to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: its line of work.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: End quote looks strange on a trophy. Hey, she earned it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: She earned it, and this little company that she established
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: ended up becoming Kitchen Aid. It was after she died
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen. But hey, pretty big feather in the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: old burial cap. I guess hotels and restaurants were the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: first ones to use it because even though it was
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: super handy as a thing, houses didn't have hot water
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: heaters that could kind of sustain that level of output
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: at the time, so you had to have these big
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: giant bowlers and boilers and hotels and stuff that could
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: handle that. But her time would come by the nineteen
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: fifties when those hot water heaters got better. The home
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: dishwasher became a pretty great thing. And I think anyone
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: whoever has lived in a small apartment or his apartment
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: searching a dishwasher was always very high at the top
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of my list because she didn't always get them.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so hats off Josephine Cochrane.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: You know you gotta sometimes you run a vacation house.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: They got two of those things.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like two dishwashers, like dish washers.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you were in like a house on the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: beach where you know, they want those houses to sleep
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like twenty people.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Oh I gotcha.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Sure, they'll have like sometimes two stoves, two dishwashers, or
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: two sets of washers and dryers and stuff. It's pretty amazing.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: We got one of those ones that's like one full
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: size washer but broken into two drawers so you can
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: run your dish dishwasher like pretty frequently.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It works really well.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I like them too, And we can thank Josephine Cochrane
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: for that. It's originated that in a pretty direct way.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder who came up with the drawer style.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I just don't know. Yeah, do you
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: want me to look it up?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: No, that's okay, okay, kid, because we're gonna talk about diapers,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: right yeah.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: We're gonna move on to an inventor named Marion Donovan
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: who has a bunch of inventions to her name, but
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: the one that she's most famous for is disposable diapers.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. You know. A lot of times, necessity is
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: a mother of invention. And at the time Mary and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Donovan was working at home as a homemaker. And this
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is after graduating from college and working for Vogue magazine
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and after inventing things even as a kid. I think
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: in elementary school she came up with a toothpowder that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: improved dntal hygiene. So Mary and Donovan just had one
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of those inventor's brains. But while she was working as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: a mom and at home, she was putting her little
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: babies down right after she changed that diaper for a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: little nappy time, and that baby would just be so
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: happy they would peel over the place. And with those
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: cloth diapers at the time that you safety pin, that
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: would leak out onto the bed sheets. So now she's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: got a baby or poopy baby, and you've got a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: wet or poopy diaper, and then you have wet or
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: poopy sheets, and that is no good. And she said,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: there's got to be a better way.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And at the time, there were something called rubber
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: pants already, which is like a diaper made of really
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: thick material that didn't breathe, so you would just pee yourself,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: and your neglectful parent would leave you to wallow in
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: your own urine and get diaper rash because that stuff
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: wouldn't leak out.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I think they went over the diaper. It's like a
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: little pair of pants exactly. Yeah, but it would keep
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: it would prevent those leaks from happening. But that didn't
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: mean you didn't still pee yourself, so you would get
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: diaper rash as a result.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd probably cut off some circulation to the calf
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and the waistline.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they would take you out in one
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: of those death strollers that we were raised in, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: you'd spend some time on the jungle gym. That was
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: also related to death because not only were there like
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: rusty edges, there were also hornets nests in the end
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: of every single one of those.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: That's right, So all you have to do is not
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: vibrate those things in your Fine, this onen't just going
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to stay in place.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you just hang from the monkey bars without moving.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Dead still like a yet, you'll be fine. So she
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: said nuts to all this, ran and grabbed a shower curtain.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Cut it. Actually two size and was like, this isn't
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just a big pair of rubber pants, and sewed it
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: on the outside of the cloth diaper, added some snaps
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: so you didn't need those safety pins, and all of
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a sudden you had your cloth diaper that could fit
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: inside of a fitted shower curtain.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, I think that's what she started out with,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: was a shower curtain, but she landed ultimately on something
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: like nylon parachute material. It could generally keep leaks in,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: but it was much more breathable and so this is
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: not necessarily the dispoper. This is the thing that led
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: to the disposable diaper. She marketed and called it boaters.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: To her, they looked like boats. I looked at these things.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I did not see it, but that's what they were called.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's a catchy, cute little name. And what it was
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: was like an improved rubber pants or rubber like diaper cover,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: because you still use the cloth diaper in there, but
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: it would prevent leaks, but it was breathable enough that
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: it didn't cause diaper rash. So this called the attention
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to a lot of people. Apparently it started being sold
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: at sax Fifth Avenue in nineteen forty nine, and the
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Kiko Corporation came and knocking and said, we'll give you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: one million dollars for this idea. And Marion just laughed
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: all the way to the bank.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because she said, you know what, that's nineteen forty nine,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and these two dopes podcast about me in twenty twenty
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: four h ask me like thirteen million bucks.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty sweet for Yeah, a woman who
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: just invented something out of necessity.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it meant she was ra immediately. She
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: got a patent for those boaters nineteen fifty one, and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: then went to work on what you were talking about,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the disposable paper diaper, and did that and it worked
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: pretty well, but it wasn't a big commercial success because
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the diaper industry didn't get behind it. They were like, hey,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you know, this is pretty good, but all that really
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: is doing is keeping you from having to wash cloth
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: diapers over and over, and we don't see the value
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in that.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Right, It's an unnecessary convenience.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Nih get back to work exactly.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: It took ten years then finally Procter and Gamble saw
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the usefulness in this and came up with Pampers and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the landfills of the world just shuddered in expectation.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Some other I said that Mary and Donovan also invented
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: some other stuff too. She invented something called the Zippity
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: do you very cool? Very cool? So it's like an
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: elastic extension that you put onto a zipper so that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: you can zip your own dress much more easily. Yeah,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: there's also something called the Big hang Up.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: It came out in the late sixties or seventies, based
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: on the font used in the advertisement. But it essentially
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: took your clothes and turned them the opposite way that
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: you would normally hang them from a hanger. So you
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: would hang it at like a rack from the what
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: is the thing that you hang the hangers on in
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: a closet, the rail, the pole, rod, the rod, thank you,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: And you would take those clothes and turn them the
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: opposite way so you could fit more clothes front to
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: back and side to side. It was an enormous space
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: saving measure.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was basically a grid, like a
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: metal grid, and you could hang anything. So it used
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: paper or not paper clips, clothes pins, right, so you
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: could hang your belts, you could hang a hat, you
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: could hang a pair of boots, You could hang whatever
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you wanted, what else, and more lots of things. But
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the point is this one grid could hold like four
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: pair of pants, two pair of boots, seven belts.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You sure you can hold a pair of boots up
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: with some clothes pins, That's what he had said, all right,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: They must have been lightweight boots back then. Like maybe
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: they're talking about like Aladdin shoes.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it speaks to the clothespins too.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Sure they're not like these woke clothes bends these days.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So one other thing about Mary and Donovan, if you
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: weren't already spitting with her enough. At forty one, she
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: went back to school and received a degree in architecture
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: from Yale and then used it to design her own
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: house in Connecticut.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Amazing, agreed, Should we take another break?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's time.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna come back and talk about grocery
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: sacks right after this and things jogging job. All right,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: we promised talk of grocery sacks. And you might be thinking, well,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: did someone invent the grocery sack? And was that person
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a woman? And why is that a big deal? Because
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it's just a bag. No, that's not what we're going
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to tell you. We're going to tell you what a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: historian named Henry Petrowski told you in an article called
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the Evolution of the Grocery Bag. And a woman named
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Margaret Knight, who was another one of these kids who
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: was inventing things from a very very preteen age.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she got a job at twelve at a or
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: fabric factory, textile mill, that's what they call it, yeah,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: cotton mill. And when you're using when you're weaving using
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: a loom in an industrial setting, there's these little torpedo,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: heavy wooden torpedo things with the steel tip on the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: end that you use to basically separate the fibers as
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you're weaving. And the whole thing moves very fast, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: if you lose your grip on it, that thing that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: is called a shuttle can go flying and injure your
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: neighbor at the next loom. Right. So Marion Knight got
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a job at one of these mills, saw this, that
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: how dangerous this could be, and before she turned thirteen,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: invented a way to prevent steel tip flying shuttles from
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: flying off of the loom and injuring somebody that became
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: distributed industry wide at all textile mills, that became like
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: a standard part of any loom. She wasn't even thirteen yet.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, also preteen. The age of twelve, she got a
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: patent for a device that automatically just stops an industrial
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: machine if something gets caught up in it. So I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: mean that every industrial machine on the planet now stops.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: When your arm gets caught or when something goes wrong,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: something gets caught in the machinery, they all stop. And
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: that is because of Margaret Knight. Yep.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: So we finally, after years and years of this of
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: coming up with great ideas and implementing them, she's like,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I just starting to look into patenting these things. And
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: she got a job ultimately at Columbia Paper Bag Company
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: in Springfield, Massachusetts, and this is where her greatest patent
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: came along. There were paper grocery sacks already, but they
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: were kind of envelope like they didn't do the job
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: very well. Like you know when you buy a greeting
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: card and they put it in that bag that doesn't
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: really do anything. It's just an envelope. It's like a
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: cover for your greeting card to go home with.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Sure, Okay, that's what grocery bags were, like paper grocery bags.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And she said, we can do way better than this.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: If we just make a square bottom grocery sack, it'll
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: stand up on its own and as you put stuff
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: into it, the weight will be distributed and you can
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: carry so much more stuff.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people were putting can goods in basically envelopes, like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: total morons, Like total morons. She came along and not
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: only figured out that that was a good idea, figured
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: out how to do it. In eighteen seventy, she built
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a wooden machine that would cut in, glue, fold and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: glue these things and manufacture them. She was working on
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a heavier duty or prototype made out of iron, and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: some jerk comes along and bald face steals her idea.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Like he had seen this thing before. His name was
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Charles Annon ann An, and he had seen it a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: few months earlier, went to file a patent. She filed
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a claim against him, a patent interference suit, and he
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was like, there's no way that this lady came up
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: with this thing. And she came into court with just
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: reams of the most detailed blueprints and spelled out exactly
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: how and when she invented it, and they went, you're wrong,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and she's right, buddy, Yeah.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: That thieve and sob Charles Ann and I couldn't see
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: anything about what became of him aside from losing that
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: patent suit and something he should have gotten some sort
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: of come up, and he shouldn't have just been let
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: off the hook for, like you said, bald faced, stealing
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: an idea or an invention that shouldn't be unpunished, you know.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: But I guess we'll have to go dig them up
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and have a talking to you with them. That's the
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: best we can hope for at this time.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: We can besmirch his name, I guess.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I guess we kind of are, but we're not besmirching.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I think besmirching indicates a certain level of like exaggeration
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: or you know, Oh okay, that's just my interpretation. I
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: don't know if it's correct or not.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I've never read the definition, so you're probably right.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So she won that patent claim and won of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: device the patent for the device in eighteen seventy one,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and went on to be awarded more than twenty patents
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: in her lifetime.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Amazing again.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, way to go, Margaret night boo, Charles Ann and booooooo.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So let's move on to the windshield wiper because this
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: is a pretty fun one. It was a woman from Alabama.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Her name was Mary Anderson born in eighteen sixty six,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a long long time ago, long before the car came along.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: She was visiting New York City and she was on
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the I guess they were street cars, and she's like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: these guys are driving around in rain and snow with
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: their head out the side window because they can't see.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: They looked like a Sventura pet detective and.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: They would have to stop and get out and wipe
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: the snow off of the trolley windshield like every so often.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: That was part of the trip, That was part of
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: driving a trolley at the time. And she said, there
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: has to be a better way. So she took this
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: experience back to Alabama and she invented the first windshield wiper. Essentially.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: It was pretty clever as a matter of fact.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she said, this thing wipe's windshields. I just don't
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: know what to call it.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: So there was a spindle, right, so like kind of
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: like a spool, but with a point on it sticking
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: out of the windshield and attached to it was an
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: arm with a squeegee on it, and the other side
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: of the spindle that went into the car was attached
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: to a cord that had a handle in the car,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: and when you pulled the handle, it operated the spring
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: mechanism that made that windshield wiper go back and forth
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: and it would reset and then the next time you
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: needed to clear off your windshields, you just pulled it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: No stopping, no getting out, no sticking your head out
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of the car, like ace Ventura. It could all be
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: done within the car, and in I think very short order.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Cadillac I think ten years after she got the patent
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: for this, Cadillac started making wind shild wiper standard on
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: their cars starting in nineteen twenty two. So that was
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: all Mary Anderson.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it was more like twenty years, but still
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: it was the first. It was the first thing to
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: roll off the line. Is something you didn't have to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: ask for. What do you call those options?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't an option, it was standard. That's nineteen
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: years later. Uh.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And she also would go on to build and manage
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: an apartment building in Birmingham, made some good money doing that,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and said, I'm going to California, And she went out
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to Fresno and operated a cattle ranch at a vineyard, yes,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: in her later years.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, though, on the way out there, she got a
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: punch in the nose and it started to flow. She
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: thought for a second that she might be sinking, but
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: she made it out. Okay, Oh man, it's on the
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: tip of my tongue.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Uh, led up one. Okay. It was one of those.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It was like it was rattling in my head and
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I heard it and I heard it. Oh God, that's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: frustrating when those never come, you know, I'm glad that
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: it came. Then I just saw this, uh this weather
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: person who does the weather on the news. Sure, and
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I guess is a Pearl Jam fan and inserts Pearl
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Jam lyrics into his weather report. Oh yeah, on the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: rag it was pretty fun.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: What news national?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Local? I think it was a local news. I didn't
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: catch the city. I mean maybe Seattle.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Oh gotcha. So you saw this on like like the internet.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was on the internet. I wasn't just
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: watching the news.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't know if you were like talking about in
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Atlanta news person, I'm like, why aren't you telling everybody who.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I don't. As we know, I
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: don't watch the local news. But what I do enjoy
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: occasionally on tour is watching local news wherever I am,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: if it happens to be on Sure, I don't seek
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: it out, but it's kind of fun when you hear about.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Car work going on nearby.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly a car rick in Boston. Very fascinating, right, everyone
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: was okay.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Though, That's good. That's usually how it pans out on
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the news.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about car heaters?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Chuck, I think this might be the last one, right,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I think? So, okay, Well, let's talk car heaters because
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Margaret Wilcox Margaret A. Wilcox, my apologies, invented the car
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: heater as you know it today, the car heater decades
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: before there was such a thing as cars. W Yeah,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: she invented the car heater for railway cars. Because when
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: she came along and reached I think her late twenties
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: has sort of been the eighteen fifties eighteen sixties, rail
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: travel was still pretty no frills for most people. Like
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: you see that one railcar that the millionaire has, and
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: it's like all outfitted and beautiful, like velvet and there's
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: oil lamps and everything. Most people's experience was nothing like that.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And in fact, especially during cold like cold months and
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: cold climates, you would be freezing in the railway car.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And Margaret Wilcox went stood up and said, enough enough
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: of being cold. Let's get warm everybody. And they said,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: invent it, Margaret, and she said I will, I'll be
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: right back.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: They said, what is warm? Even we forgot this is
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, So you know, she had plenty of experience
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in the cold.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I cannot imagine how cold it was.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I mean it's like now, but maybe colder.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: With no break, no heat, you just stayed cold.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean people's roofs collapse in Chicago in the
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: winter because it gets so snowy, and that would indicate
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: it gets pretty cold.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. So she's like, hold on a minute, I
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: know that they're shoveling coal up there. Those guys are
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: sweating up there in the engine room where freezing er
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: took us off back here? What do we gotta do
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to get some of that heat back here? And shockingly,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: no one had ever thought of that the fact that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: there was heat on board that train in Spain, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: all you had to do was send it back to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the what do you call them passenger cars.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's essentially what she did. She figured out
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: how to pipe engine heat back to the passengers. There
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: were some problems with this invention the train car heater.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: One was there was no way whatsoever to regulate this heat.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I imagine you could open the windows when
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: you needed to, but it would just get hotter and
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: hotter and hotter in the rail car. And that was
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: kind of a problem, but I think it was still
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: preferable to the cold.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now is where I introduce you to my
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: first car as a sixteen year old. Talked about it
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: before nineteen sixty eight, Volkswagen Beatle. Sure, and if you
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: ever run those old volkswagens, you know they had heat
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: that I like to refer to as the ankle burners.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I remember that.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Same concept as Margaret Wilcox's heat idea. H those Oldvw's
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: would just pump heat straight from that rear engine out
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: these little vents on the floorboard right by your ankles.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And there was at least in the sixty eight that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I had. There was no way of regulating it. I
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: think at a seventy five later on that had like
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a little lever that you could, you know, bring in
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the cool air too.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: It just opened the passenger door.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. But I had a hole in my floorboard too,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: so that up that.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you said that, and I'm sure when
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: you've told me that before, I told you that my
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: dad had a hole in his floorboard of his Malibu
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: when we were kids.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: So right, less just sit there and watch the world
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: go by under your face, right.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: So, Uh. Margaret Wilcox's idea was implemented in train cars
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: more importantly when automobile engineers came along and started inclosing cars,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: because you know, the first cars were all open, there
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: was no roof. Yeah, as they started doing close them,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: they're like, we could control the climate in here. We
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: need some sort of climate control mechanism. And they looked
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: around and they found Margaret Wilcox's patent for transmitting engine
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: heat to the passenger compartment. And over time they kind
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: of refined it and it got more and more advanced
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: to where now there's hot coolant that's heated by the
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: engine that transfers that heat to the cabin air when
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: you turn the heat on. Even more amazingly, you can
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: you can adjust the heat the temperature by letting in
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: colder outside air without even opening your windows.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: That's right, And she got a patent for this thing.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Eighteen ninety three. She received a patent. Obviously, there were
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: women were able to get patents by that point, and
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: she was on a pretty short list.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: At least one hundred.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Was there a hundred? Yeah?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Remember one hundred women? Who had the list of one
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: hundred women who were inventors that had patents that the Patent.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Office created, and it called one hundred women.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I guess not. No, you're right, I wonder what the
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: list was.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I gotta get that list.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it had to be decent size. It took
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: four clerks ten days to compile the list.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: But they had to go through all the patents period though,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to get that list. So yeah, yeah, who knows, I
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Well, anyway, she was on that list eventually, that's right.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Or actually that's not even true either. The list came
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: out a couple of years before she got her patent,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: five years before, so it's completely moot. But there is
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: one other mention about her too that I love. She
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: had some other ideas that she patented, unfortunately not in
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: her name, because this was before women could have had
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: property rights for a combination clothes dishwasher.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know if.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: It's the same time. Maybe the same time. If so,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: there's really gross. Yeah, but it's still also very clever.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, you don't want your you don't want your
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: champagne glass being watched next to your bloomers.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: No, especially if they're so because you drank too much champagne.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, you got anything else?
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Are you sure?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, since Chuck affirmed that he has nothing else,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I think everybody, it's time for listener man, I'm.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Gonna call this misunderstanding from episode titles. Okay, And I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: should say that we had a wonderful young woman in
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: maybe DC. I think it was DC that said that
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: she was a bird enthusiast and that she was all
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: excited about the Cranes episode and then realized it was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: construction Cranes. That's why we've titled things like our Nirvana episode.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I think it was Nirvana, not the band sure, so
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: we do stuff like that. We try to be clear,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: but not always.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we're purposely obtuse.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because like you might want the bird crane and
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: then be delightfully surprised or disappointed, right exactly. Hey guys,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I'm in and out, but og all the time. Stuff
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: you should know has stayed with me as a weekly
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: listen ever since I heard the Jellyfish app. I consider
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: myself well versed in the English language and American pop culture,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: but every now and then, titles of the episode set
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: me up for quite the surprise. I should probably read
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the descriptions for the episodes, yes, but I'm going to
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: listen regardless of what's the point. For example, Hobo Signs,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I thought it was about handwritten signs that hitchhikers make,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: or someone saying will work for food, or the end
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: is messed what I think it was probably supposed to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: be the end is near.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was some weird a auto correct.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I like the end is mess though, IM gont it?
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: That should be a T shirt? Sure, I like that
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: to my delight as a ux designer. It was about
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: iconography and communication even better than those cardboard signs. The
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: last episode about conductors. I know what's coming. I thought
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: it was about train conductors, and the tagline what the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: heck is going on there was referring to their mindset
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: when they're patrolling in the aisle and train station, like
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: an American equivalent of the British what's all this? Then?
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I was also hoping that it was not about electric
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: conductors because I really wanted a train episode. Turned out
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I was wrong once. Thanks for all the great knowledge
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: that is from Morton Laggerud in Norway.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Great name, Morton, Thank you for listening to us all
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: these years. Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Have we done one on just trains?
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. No, that seems like a big,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: big one.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's a big asmr sid too.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Oh sorry everybody hopefully Mesiphonia side.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well we could try to do one on train.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we just have to figure out how to condense it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Can't get into electric trains, I'll tell you that, by God,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: no way. Well, if you want to be like Morton
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: and let us know some hilariousness that comes from our
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: titles or something we said, or just something you thought of.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: We love hearing stuff like that, you can send it
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: to us in an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.