Welcome back to my Erased Women in STEM series, celebrating Science Literacy Week and the upcoming release of my new children’s book, THE MATILDA EFFECT: HOW 25 WOMEN WERE ERASED FROM HISTORY.
If you’re just catching up, you might want to check out previous posts in the series:
Rosalind Franklin: DNA Decoder (1920-1958)
Margaret E. Knight: Professional Inventor (about 1837-1914)
Today, we’re talking about Ellen Eglin, an American inventor who lived around the same time as Margaret E. Knight. In 1890, Ellen invented a wringer—a machine for squeezing excess water out of laundry so it would dry a little faster on the clothesline. But instead of taking out a patent on her invention, Ellen sold the rights for $18 (about $600 today). The new owner of her design manufactured and sold the wringers to the public, earning a whole lot more.
Why would Ellen settle for $18, a fraction of the money she might have made? Because being a woman inventor in 19th century America was really, really difficult.
And Ellen was not just a woman. She was also Black.
Before the American Civil War (1861-1865), enslaved Africans were ineligible to receive patents, because any ideas they had or inventions they created were the legal property of their owners. Free Black people could patent their own inventions, but it wasn’t easy. To the best of our knowledge, only two Black men received patents before 1865, and no Black women (it’s hard to be certain, because the United States Patent and Trademark Office only started recording inventors’ race and gender in 2021).
When slavery was abolished after the Civil War, people of all racial backgrounds became eligible for patents. But women of colour were fighting a double discrimination, based on both their gender and their race. In the 25 years between the end of the war and Ellen’s 1890 invention, only three or four Black women received patents. If Hispanic, Asian, or Native American women inventors were also working during this period, we know nothing about them.
And what do we know about Ellen? Very little. Historians have tried to reconstruct her biography, but a lot of speculation and assumptions are involved. There’s only one definitive source on Ellen’s life—an 1890 interview in The Woman Inventor, where Ellen explains exactly why she sold her rights:
You know I am Black, and if it was known that a [Black] woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer.
I mean… what else is there to say?
Read more about Ellen in my new children’s book, THE MATILDA EFFECT: HOW 25 WOMEN WERE ERASED FROM HISTORY, coming this fall from Kids Can Press!
And stay tuned for my next blog post on Eunice Newton Foote: Forgotten Climate Scientist.
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