ivated to give inventing a try. "
Her students agree. One young man with a patent for an unbreakable umbrella is walking proof of
McLean's statement. "If I had not heard the story of the windshield wiper's invention," said Tommy Lee,
a senior physics major, "I never would have dreamed of turning my bad experience during a rainstorm
into something so constructive. " Lee is currently negotiating to sell his patent to an umbrella producer.
So, just what is the story behind the windshield wiper? Well, Mary Anderson came up with the idea
in 1902 after a visit to New York City. The day was cold and stormy, but Anderson still wanted to see
the sights,so she jumped aboard a streetcar. Noticing that the driver was struggling to see through the
snow covering the windshield, she found herself wondering why there couldn't be a builtin device for
cleaning the window. Still wondering about this when she returned home to Birmingham, Alabama,
Anderson started drafting out solutions. One of her ideas, a lever (操作杆) on the inside of a vehicle
that would control an arm on the outside,became the first windshield wiper.
Today we benefit from countless inventions and innovations. It's hard to imagine driving without
Garrett A. Morgan's traffic light. It's equally impossible to picture a world without Katherine J.
Blodgett's innovation that makes glass invisible. Can you picture life without clear windows and
eyeglasses?