Women inventors haven’t always received the credit or recognition they deserve in the history books. The downplaying of their accomplishments is often compounded in the cases of those who were also mothers, as these were women who had to juggle the demands of parenthood while also pursuing innovations in their professional fields. Being able to navigate the two makes their inventions even more worthy of celebration.

Here’s a selection of women who successfully combined the challenges of being a mother with the creation of things that also changed the lives of people they had never met.

1. Melitta Bentz // Coffee Filter
2. Slawa Horowitz // Folding Umbrella
3. Teruko Mizushima // Time Bank
4. Helen Murray Free // Diabetes Test
5. Harriet Tracy // Safety Elevator

Melitta Bentz // Coffee Filter

When millions have their coffee with a filter each day, they owe it to the invention of a woman over 100 years ago. Melitta Bentz revolutionised the coffee-making process through the invention of the paper coffee filter, which removed the grounds that had sometimes left the drink with a bitter taste.

One of the ways in which she discovered this shows how she combined motherhood with her work: she used blotting paper from her son’s exercise book to create the filter, which produced the successful result. She registered the patent on June 20, 1908, which was soon granted, and by the end of the same year, she had founded a company bearing her name, Melitta, to manufacture the filters, which continues to operate to this day.

Slawa Horowitz // Folding Umbrella

Before Slawa Horowitz, umbrellas had always been large and sometimes cumbersome objects that took up a lot of space when not in use. If showers dried up when someone was out and about with their umbrella, it wasn’t always easy to find a place to put it away or make it easier to carry. This changed thanks to the invention of Slawa Horowitz (also known by the surname Duldig following her later marriage to Karl Duldig).

In 1928, Horowitz had reflected on the inconvenience of having to carry a large umbrella all around and wished there were a way to make it more compact. This led her to invent the first folding umbrella, which would make managing the changing weather much easier for millions in the future. Today, her daughter Eva runs the Duldig Studio, a museum designed to highlight the accomplishments of her mother, in addition to the work of her father in his own field, too.

Teruko Mizushima // Time Bank

The Japanese writer Teruko Mizushima invented the world’s first time bank in 1973, a system in which services are exchanged based on the time spent on them instead of money. Mizushima, who was also a mother, wanted to create a form of economy centered around community and stronger social connections, including providing extra support to those who needed more assistance. Those who participated would earn time credit for each hour of work they completed, which they could then use in the future.

The first time bank was the Volunteer Labor Bank in Osaka, and the concept soon spread to other countries. In recent times, the concept has also been examined in terms of the help it could provide the elderly and relieve the burden of care in conventional systems.

Helen Murray Free // Diabetes Test

Helen Murray, later known as Helen Murray Free, was the inventor of the world’s first glucose-strip diabetes test. Her work in diagnostic chemistry changed the management of diabetes forever, as it gave individuals the ability to monitor their blood sugar levels from home and not have to rely on visits to doctors or hospitals to measure this.

Murray Free’s great accomplishment was also achieved with a very busy role as a mother: she had six children with her husband Alfred Free, in addition to being stepmother to Alfred’s three children from an earlier marriage.

Harriet Tracy // Safety Elevator

Harriet Ruth Tracy was a prolific 19th-century inventor who registered at least 27 patents during her career, an achievement all the more remarkable given that women made up only 1% of all people who registered patents during the century in question. In addition to her numerous inventions, Tracy also had four daughters with her husband.

One of her most notable inventions was the safety elevator, a device that was designed to prevent the kind of catastrophic falls that had plagued other kinds of elevators. This elevator, which Tracy patented in 1892, included a crucial device that kept the shaft closed and ensured people couldn’t fall through it, which would improve the safety of millions of users in the future.

More Like This: