When most people think of inventors they think of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. But there have been a number of women inventors who have made life easier for us through their vision and ingenuity. You may be shocked at some everyday things that were invented by women.

The crew at Mental Floss did some research and came up with quite a list.

THE CIRCULAR SAW--A weaver named Tabitha Babbitt was the first to suggest that lumber workers use a circular saw instead of the two-man pit saw that only cut when pulled forward. She made a prototype and attached it to her spinning wheel in 1813.
THE PAPER BAG--America got a brand new paper bag when cotton mill worker Margaret Knight invented a machine to make them with a flat square bottom in 1868. A man named Charles Annan saw her design and tried to patent the idea first. Knight filed a lawsuit and won the patent fair and square in 1871.
THE DISHWASHER--Patented in 1886, the first dishwasher combined high water pressure, a wheel, a boiler, and a wire rack like the ones still used for dish drying. Inventor Josephine Cochrane never used it herself, but it made life easier for her servants.
SCOTCHGUARD--Apparently, it takes a stain to fight one. In 1952, 3M chemist Patsy Sherman was perplexed when some fluorochemical rubber spilled on a lab assistant's shoe and wouldn't come off. Without changing the color of the shoe, the stain repelled water, oil, and other liquids. Sherman and her co-inventor Samuel Smith called it Scotchguard.
LIQUID PAPER--In the days before the delete key, secretary Bette Nesmith Graham (Monkee Mike Nesmith's mom) secretly used white tempera paint to cover up her typing errors. She spent years perfecting the formula in her kitchen before patenting Liquid Paper in 1958.

Some other things invented by women are Kevlar, disposable diapers and alphabet blocks.
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