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Found 93 Stories
Maxey bent over a workbench using tools
Blog

The Many Facets of Places of Invention

Our Innovative Lives program series continues the Lemelson Center’s exploration of inventors and their creative spaces.

A planet earth globe with a green-hue is being plugged into a USB outlet.
Blog

In the Spotlight: Fort Collins’s Amy Prieto and Sunil Cherian

For some inventors, every day is Earth Day.

Black and white photo of Early French cinema pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché standing with camera tripod.
Blog

Ready for Their Close-ups: Women Inventors in Filmmaking

In honor of Women’s History Month, we celebrate female inventors in filmmaking.

A middle-aged woman sitting on a barrel next to an outside staircase. She is holding a sketchbook.
Blog

Immigrant Lili Réthi Revealed the Drama of Construction

Graphic illustrator Lili Réthi depicted engineering, construction, and industrial projects with sensational realism.

A young blonde woman sitting in a wheelchair, wearing a red tank top, and holding up a 3D printed racing glove.
Blog

Arielle Rausin’s Invention Fits Like a Glove

Wheelchair marathoner Arielle Rausin invented 3D printed gloves that helped her race faster for longer.

Drawing of ten ice cream cones on a plate, stacked in a pyramid shape.
Blog

The Inventive “Queens of Ices”

Some cool women inventors are behind a favorite summer treat!

Chien-Shiung Wu in profile, sitting at a desk with a panel of knobs and dials in front of her.
Blog

Diverse Voices: Chien-Shiung Wu, “The Chinese Marie Curie”

Chinese-born scientist Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu made significant contributions to experimental physics that helped change what we know about the atomic world.

Cover of American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R&D
Lemelson Center Books

American Independent Inventors in an Era of Corporate R&D

How America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions. Published in the Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation book series with MIT Press.

Hamilton playing tennis in a wheelchair
Beyond Words

Innovative Lives: Quickie Wheelchair Inventor Marilyn Hamilton

Marilyn Hamilton, co-inventor of the Quickie wheelchair, speaks about her life as an athlete and inventor.

Alexander Graham Bell seated at table, speaking into telephone while a group of men watch.
Invention Stories

Diverse Voices: Immigrant Inventors

Immigrant inventors are essential to the invention landscape.

Orange box with words Who Gets to Be an Inventor
Invention Stories

Diverse Voices: Women Inventors

Throughout American history, women with diverse backgrounds and interests created inventions that change our lives every day.

Informal pose of Tahira Reid Smith, arms folded
Blog

Game Changers Inventor Spotlight: Tahira Reid Smith

Engineering professor Dr. Tahira Reid Smith has been inventive since childhood and is best known for her automated double-Dutch jump rope machine.

Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl wearing Jogbras running
Beyond Words

Inventive Minds: Inventors of the Sports Bra

Lisa Lindahl, Hinda Miller, and Polly Palmer Smith invented the now-ubiquitous sports bra in the 1970s.

Detail of Handprints on Hubble book cover, showing astronaut Kathy Sullivan looking out the window of the space shuttle.
Lemelson Center Books

Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention

The first American woman to walk in space recounts her experiences as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope. Published in the Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation book series with MIT Press.

Article from The Woman Inventor, 1890, titled “Colored Woman Inventor,” with the story of Ellen Eglin who invented a clothes-wringer but was afraid that white women would not buy the wringer if they knew it had been invented by an African American woman. Eglin sold her invention to an agent for $18 in 1888 and made no further profit from it.
Blog

Who Invents and Who Gets the Credit?

The complex story of an African American woman inventor, hidden behind a simple clothes wringer.

Patricia Bath stands amongst a group of students during a Lemelson Center Innovative Lives program in 2000.
Blog

Remembering Dr. Patricia Bath

Pathbreaker, physician, educator, role model, and inventor of the Laserphaco Probe for the treatment of cataracts.

A black-and-white icon of a Mac Classic computer with a smiling face on the screen.
Blog

Susan Kare, Iconic Designer

Susan Kare designed the distinctive icons, typefaces, and other graphic elements that gave the Apple Macintosh its characteristic—and widely emulated—look and feel.

Detail of a photo of Elaine Ostroff, on left, with two other women, looking at a model of a play space. The words Play Room are on the door behind Ostroff.
Blog

Creating and Shaping Learning Environments

“It can happen anywhere—a learning environment can happen anywhere.” (Elaine Ostroff, Wheaton College interview, undated)

Official portrait of NASA astronaut Ellen Ochoa in her flight suit, 12 February 2002
Blog

Highlighting Hispanic Inventors and Innovators

A few stories of often overlooked inventors and innovators in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

Frances Gabe pointing to model of her self-cleaning house, 1979
Blog

You Don’t Have Time to Clean Your House—Now What?

Frances Gabe called cleaning a “thankless, unending job, a nerve-twangling bore.” She set out to change that.

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