Mill Talk: Almost Forgotten Female Inventors

Extraordinary Innovations in Industry and Technology

Hollywood starlet and ingenious inventor: Hedy Lamarr and pioneering African American inventor Margret Stewart Joyner.

Yankee Ingenuity.... Another name for the spirit of invention.

Some have asserted that because labor shortages perpetually plagued Americans, prior to immigration, that the Yankee mind was uniquely innovative, always searching for new labor saving devices.  To wit: Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.  But the spirit of innovation also came from another place in America, the open patent system, making innovation accessible to all, blind to race and gender and to the amateur or the professional.

"The Landlord Game" on which Monopoly was based.

This talk will explore the motivation and successes of four female inventors: Margaret Knight (the flat-bottomed paper bag machine), Margaret Stewart Joyner (the permanent-hair-wave-machine), Hedy Lamarr (a radio wave changing device that blocked signal jamming by the Germans in World War II) and Elizabeth Maggie (the woman behind the Monopoly game).  In doing so, Dr. Green will explore the range of inventions credited to women, the reasons for success and failure, and more generally to evoke the spirit of innovation in America writ large.

Doors open at 6:30pm. The talk begins at 7:00pm. - Come early for a self-guided museum tour!