Rain and snow are always troublesome for motorists. The road becomes slippery and visibility is impaired. Drivers had to constantly stop their cars and manually wipe the windows. This problem was solved by a young American woman Mary Anderson... She invented windshield wipers.
The idea to make life easier for motorists was born to Mary during a trip from Alabama to New York. It snowed all the way. Mary Anderson saw drivers constantly stop, open their car windows and clear snow from the windshield.
The rest is under the cut
The driver who was driving her stopped every now and then, got out of the car and rubbed windshieldcursing everything in the world. Mary, barely restraining herself, watched this fuss and wondered how nice it would be to wipe the damn glass without getting out of the cab. This will save time and stress. Would anyone have come up with such an ingenious design ...
To kill time, Miss Anderson began to figure out what the brush should be and how to set it in motion right from the cab. By the end of the trip, the project was ripe. Conceptually, the device was not much different from the modern one. What we call today the "janitor" was made of steel and attached to the top of the windshield. The glass was cleaned with a rubber nozzle. "Janitor", as Mary intended, was driven directly from the cab by a twisting handle.
The result is a device with a rotating handle and a rubber roller. The first wiper had a lever that allowed them to be operated from inside the car. With the help of a lever, a pressure device with an elastic band described an arc on the glass, removing rain drops, snow flakes from the glass and returned to its original position.
Mary Anderson received a patent for her invention in 1903. Similar devices have been developed in the past, but Mary got a actually working device. In addition, its wipers were easily removable.
At the beginning of the last century, cars were not yet very popular (Henry Ford created his famous car only in 1908), so many scoffed at Anderson's idea. Skeptics believed that the movement of the brushes would distract drivers.
By 1913, however, thousands of Americans had their own cars, and mechanical wipers became standard equipment.
Curiously, the automatic wiper was invented by another woman inventor - Charlotte Bridgwood. She headed the New York City Bridgwood Manufacturing Company.
In 1917, Charlotte Bridgwood patented the electric roller windshield wiper, calling it the Storm Windshield Cleaner.
The design of the brushes hasn't changed much since its inception. The main component of the wiper is a rubber element. The differences between different wipers are only in the composition of the rubber and the quality of the material.
Now they do not produce windshield wipers from pure rubber, since it freezes in the cold in winter, and in summer it heats up in the sun to 70-80 degrees, from which the rubber bursts or dries out.
I did not find it in the search by posts, if I delete it.
Who!
There are several options. But where is the truth?
1. The most famous. Until 1903, atmospheric precipitation caused a lot of trouble for motorists. To improve visibility, drivers had to stop and manually wipe the windows. A young American woman, Mary Anderson, was able to solve this problem. She invented windshield wipers.The idea to make life easier for motorists was born to Mary during a trip from Alabama to New York. Snow and rain fell all the way. Mary Anderson saw drivers constantly stop, open their car windows, and clear snow from the windshield. Mary decided that the process could be improved and began to design a design for a windshield wiper.
The result is a device with a rotating handle and a rubber roller. The first wiper had a lever that allowed them to be operated from inside the car. With the help of a lever, a pressure device with an elastic band described an arc on the glass, removing rain drops, snow flakes from the glass and returned to its original position.
Mary Anderson received a patent for her invention in 1903. Similar devices have been developed in the past, but Mary got a actually working device. In addition, its wipers were easily removable.At the beginning of the last century, cars were not yet very popular (Henry Ford created his famous car only in 1908), so many scoffed at Anderson's idea. Skeptics believed that the movement of the brushes would distract drivers. By 1913, however, thousands of Americans had their own cars, and mechanical wipers became standard equipment.
The automatic wiper was invented by another woman inventor - Charlotte Bridgwood. She headed the New York City Bridgwood Manufacturing Company. In 1917, Charlotte Bridgwood patented an electric roller windshield wiper, calling it Storm Windshield Cleaner.
2. Lesser known. .. The rain whipped on the windows of the car with such incredible force that Mr. Oushi could hardly see a cyclist who unexpectedly drove across his car, soaked to the skin. And on a cold autumn evening of 1916 in Buffalo, state NY, there was a tragedy: the aftar did not control the controls and killed the cyclist with his car ...
The incident prompted Mr. Oushi to think: if there were a special cleaning device on the windshield of his car, this would hardly have happened. And soon, a hitherto unknown American, who, however, was destined to become famous, organized the three-continental corporation TRICO, which immediately took up the development of the world's first windshield brushes.From that cold, rainy evening in 1916 to the present day, his firm has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of new designs for windshield cleaning systems. And, in addition to the wipers themselves, I developed leashes, motors, pumps and special liquids... In a word, everything that is so necessary for high-quality glass cleaning.
The brainchild of Mr. Oushi turned out to be very unique, because throughout its history it specialized in the production of only one product designed to provide impeccable visibility, and he easily achieved it ...3. I read somewhere that my uncle had invented something, returning from the theater on a rainy evening.
Some inventions look so simple and familiar that it is no longer possible to imagine reality without them. So, few people can believe that once there were no wipers on the windshields of cars. It wasn't until 1913 that the mechanical wiper became a standard part.
The American Mary Anderson, an American realtor, winegrower and inventor, is considered the creator of the first working prototype of janitors. She is best known for her cleaning wipers. car glass... Anderson was born in Green County, (Alabama, USA) in 1866. Three years later, Mary, with her widowed mother and sister, moved, without leaving Alabama, to the city of Birmingham. And in the winter of 1903 she visited New York.
One frosty day she had to take a ride in a trolleybus. Mary noticed that the driver has to drive the trolleybus with the window open, despite the bitter frost and biting wind - otherwise it was difficult to maintain a normal view due to the falling snow. Back in Alabama, Anderson designed a model for a windshield wiper. With the help of a local company, Mary produced a prototype of the device developed; in 1903 she received a patent for her invention (for a period of 17 years).
The design of the Anderson wiper is simple - it is a lever inside the cabin, with which it was possible to control the rubber strip attached to the outside. The driver used the lever to move the wiper across the glass, wiping off the adhering snow. The weight placed on the bar made the cleaning especially effective.
Similar devices were invented before Anderson, but Mary was the first who managed to create something really convenient and practical. In 1905, she tried to sell her patent to a well-known Canadian company, but she was refused - the entrepreneurs felt that the likely income did not cover the difficulties associated with production. Popularity car wipers acquired only 10 years after the invention.
And in 1917, another American woman, Charlotte Bridgwood, who heads the New York City Bridgwood Manufacturing Company, invented and, of course, patented the electric roller wiper. It also took the Americans 10 years to adopt this idea. Although the first working models went on sale as early as 1920, automobile conservatives believed that the constant swinging of windshield wipers in front of their eyes would distract the driver from the road.
Then the wipers were improved many times. In 1962, Detroit resident and Ford car owner, Robert Kearns, came up with the idea to create car wipers that mimic the movement of the human age. And in 1964 he patented an intermittent (blinking) wiper.
Robert Kearns won $ 10 million in court. A plot from the biographical film A Glimpse of Genius; starring Greg Kinnear. Photo from livejournal.com
It would not be a big exaggeration if we say that the history of the invention of car wipers is directly related to the struggle of American women for equality. True, at first they were invented by one Polish composer Joseph Hoffman, but since he was still a composer, he did not bother to patent his invention.
Therefore, the glory of the discoverers of the method of cleaning windshields went to two American women who took the registration of intellectual property rights more seriously, thanks to which we know the exact date of the beginning of the history of car wipers - 1903.
Exploitation of American women
It was a time when, in bad weather, American cars moved on the roads thanks to women - the wives of drivers who leaned out of the cars and informed their faithful about the situation on the road. (Drivers, deprived of female society, had to stop and clear their vision every now and then).
Naturally, not everyone liked driving in the snow or rain, leaning out of the car. Rather, we can assume that no one liked it, but that was the tradition at that time, which was formed due to the lack of equality between floors and windshield wipers.
Substitute
And so a young American woman Mary Anderson decided to replace women in this difficult task with a special mechanism that cleans windshield from rain and snow and thus allowing the driver to dispense with the help of female navigational abilities. And since Mary was not only a woman, but also an American, when she invented the first windshield wiper, she first patented it.
Mary's invention was a rubber roller with a lever with which it could be controlled from inside the machine. True, similar inventions were made before, but with Mary it (invention), firstly, worked, and secondly, it was patented.
However, car wipers did not gain popularity until ten years later (Ford began car production in 1908). By 1913, windshield wipers had become a standard automotive part.
And by 1917, life had improved not only for the wives of motorists, but also for the car owners themselves, who no longer had to work with their hands. Another American woman, Charlotte Bridgwood, who heads the New York City Bridgwood Manufacturing Company, invented and, of course, patented the electric roller wiper.
It also took conservative Americans ten years to adopt this idea. Although the first working models went on sale as early as 1920, automobile conservatives believed that the constant swinging of windshield wipers in front of their eyes would distract the driver from the road.
Then the wipers were improved many times. One of the reasons for their evolutionary development was the change in the shape of the windshield, which is different for trucks, special vehicles of public utilities and other mobiles, and is selected, as you all know, individually, according to the BAW spare parts catalog. But that's another story, and we'll continue talking about the impact of patents on big business.
Unsuccessful business
In 1962, Detroit resident and Ford car owner, Robert Kearns, came up with the idea to create car wipers that mimic the movement of the human age. And in 1964 he patented an intermittent (blinking) wiper.
And then he made the biggest mistake that the owner of a patent for a new and popular invention can only make. He overestimated his abilities as a businessman. Kearns decided that he could become something like the founder of the Gillette empire (inventor and patent holder for the T-shaped razor). But he did not take into account that before the Vest, the shaving industry did not exist, and in his time there were already automobile giants.
Rather, Kearns for some reason decided that Ford would be happy to buy new wipers from him, instead of making them himself. Therefore, he refused to sell his patent and began to create his own firm to produce new windshield wipers.
Then something happened that usually happens in the business world. The big shark ate a small competitor. Ford first bought a trial license for "windshield wipers" for use on one of the models and assured Kerns of further close collaboration. But soon he began to independently release blinking wipers, an original design, as he announced. And Kerns was left with unclaimed equipment, bought with large loans.
However, the inventor had more tenacity than business ability. And since 1978, for 12 years, Kearns had a long litigation with Ford (Ford Motor Corporation) over infringement of his copyrights and still won the first case in 1990, having sued him 10.1 million dollars. And in 1992, he received $ 18.7 million from the Chrysler Corporation. Others
He also did not let the automotive giants get bored.
However, if Kearns had realistically assessed the prospects of his business from the very beginning, he could have simply traded in licenses and received small royalties from each new wiper of his design. I don't know if he would have received more moneythan he managed to sue (although he probably would have gotten it), but how much time, effort and, most importantly, nerves he would have saved himself! After all, as we can see, a patent in the West is a great force. You just need to use it correctly.
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Background.
It's hard for us to imagine today modern car without such a seemingly ordinary device like a wiper mechanism. In ancient times, even at the dawn of the automotive industry, drivers had to drive in bad weather with a dirty windshield. This forced motorists to make frequent stops, get out of the car in order to wipe the glass. It is noteworthy that a woman came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a purifier mechanism. American Mary Anderson, in the distant 1903, making an everyday trip around the city in a tram, noticed that the car driver, despite the bad weather, was forced to go with the windshield folded back. The mechanism proposed by the woman together with the design team was surprisingly simple and consisted of a rubberized scraper, which, by means of a manual drive, moved along the glass and returned to its original position thanks to a return spring. A decade later, all cars made in the USA began to be equipped with a similar device. Over time, the wiper mechanism evolved, received electric drive... The rubber scraper has given way to a modern brush.
Nowadays.
Today, most motorists know two types of brushes: frame (reinforcing) and frameless.
Frame brushes are the oldest and most well-known type of car wipers and consist of a so-called metal frame, which ensures that a rubber band is pressed against the glass at certain stop points. This design has many disadvantages. Firstly, sufficient clamping force of the rubber band to the glass is not provided, and secondly, the hinge joints of the mechanism tend to freeze in frost, especially when water or snow gets there. Popularity of this type wipers due to their cheapness. However, an increasing number of modern motorists are making their choice in favor of frameless construction.
Frameless wiper is a metal plate covered with a rubber sheath. The design is devoid of the above disadvantages. Thus, a snug fit of the brush to the windshield is ensured. The mechanism is hidden under the shell, thereby eliminating the possibility of water ingress. Such wipers are noticeably more expensive than their outdated counterparts, but the money spent is more than repaid by the joy of the excellent view through the windshield in any bad weather.
