盘点由女性发明的10件东西(上)

At the end of the 20th century, only 10 percent of all patents were awarded to female inventors. When you compile a list of the most famous inventions of the past few centuries, few women will show up as the creators of those items. It's not that women lack ingenuity or a creative spirit, though; it's just that women have faced many hurdles in receiving credit for their ideas. Take the case of SyBilla Masters, a woman who lived in the American colonies. After observing Native American women, she came up with a new way to turn corn into cornmeal. She went to England to obtain a patent for her work, but laws at the time stipulated that women couldn't own property, which included intellectual property like a patent. Such property was considered to be owned by the woman's father or husband. In 1715, a patent for Sybilla Masters' product was issued, but the name on the document is that of her husband, Thomas.

截止20世纪末，世界上授予女发明家的专利只有10%。当你在清单上列出过去几个世纪以来最著名的发明创造时，你会发现几乎没有什么是女性发明的。这并不代表女性缺乏创造力和创新精神，而是因为女性在获取发明专利时会遇到很多阻碍。比如西比拉·马斯特斯，她是一个居住在美国殖民地的著名发明家。通过观察美国原住民妇女，她想出了一个将玉米磨成粉的新方法。之后她去英国申请专利；但是当时的法律规定女性不能拥有财产，其中包括专利等知识产权。人们都认为这些东西都归属于其父亲或者丈夫。1715年，西比拉·马斯特斯的专利产品发布了，但专利所属人却是她的丈夫托马斯。

Such property laws prevented many women from acquiring patents for inventions several centuries ago. Women were also less likely to receive a technical education that would help them turn an ingenious idea into an actual product. Many women faced prejudice and ridicule when they sought help from men in actualizing their idea. And some women came up with ideas that would improve life in their households, only to see their inventions treated with scorn for being too domestic and thus unworthy of praise. Mary Kies was the first American woman to earn a patent in her own name. In 1809, she developed a way of weaving straw into hats that was an economic boon for New England. By receiving that piece of paper with her name on it, Kies led the way for other female inventors to take credit for their ideas. In this article, we'll salute 10 things invented by women.

这种产权法在过去的几个世纪剥夺了很多女发明家申请专利的权利。另外，由于那时的女性很少有机会接受技术教育，所以无法将自己的想法转化为发明。当这些妇女企图从男人们那里寻求帮助来实现自己的想法时，她们经常遭到歧视和嘲笑。一些妇女在做家务的过程中想出了一些简化家务劳动的办法，但她们的发明常常因为仅用于家庭而被忽视。玛丽·凯斯是第一位用自己的名字获得发明专利的美国女性。1809年，她发明了一种编织稻草帽的方法，这种方法成为了新英格兰的经济福利。凯斯收到专利文件之后，开启了其他女发明家成功为自己申请专利的序幕。在本文中，我们将一起向这10件由女性发明发明的东西致敬！

ular Saw

10.圆锯

In the late 18th century, a religious sect known as the Shakers emerged. Shakers valued living communally (albeit celibately), equality between the sexes and hard work. Tabitha Babbitt lived in a Shaker community in Massachusetts and worked as a weaver, but in 1810, she came up with a way to lighten the load of her brethren. She observed men cutting wood with a pit saw, which is a two-handled saw that requires two men to pull it back and forth. Though the saw is pulled both ways, it only cuts wood when it's pulled forward; the return stroke is useless. To Babbitt, that was wasted energy, so she created a prototype of the circular saw that would go on to be used in saw mills. She attached a circular blade to her spinning wheel so that every movement of the saw produced results. Because of Shaker precepts, Babbitt didn't apply for a patent for the circular saw she created.

在18世纪晚期，一种被称为震教的教派出现了。震教徒的信仰在于追求共产主义生活（尽管保持独身生活）、平等的两性关系和努力工作。塔比莎·芭比特是一名纺织工，住在马萨诸塞州一个震教徒聚居地。但是在1810年，她想出了一种方法帮她的教友减轻工作负担。她通过观察发现，如果男人用大锯子锯木头，需要两个人来回用力拉扯锯子。虽然锯子来回拉动了两次，但是只有往前时才有作用，拉回锯子时却是在做“无用功”。在芭比特看来，这样做无疑是在浪费人们的力气，因此她制作了最原始的圆锯，随后在锯木厂得到了使用。她将一张圆形刀片绑在自己的手摇纺车上面，这样锯子的移动都是有用的。令人感到遗憾的是，由于震教组织的信仰，芭比特没有为圆锯申请专利。

olate Chip Cookies

9.巧克力奇普饼干

There is no doubt that many treasured recipes came about through accidental invention in the kitchen, but we must single out one of the most enduring -- and delicious -- of these recipes: the chocolate chip cookie.

毫无疑问的是，很多不可多得的食品都是在厨房里偶然发明出来的，而我们将挑出其中长盛不衰、美味无限的一种：巧克力奇普饼干。

Ruth Wakefield had worked as a dietitian and food lecturer before buying an old toll house outside of Boston with her husband. Traditionally, toll houses were places weary travelers paid their road tolls, grabbed a quick bite and fed their horses. Wakefield and her husband converted the toll house into an inn with a restaurant. One day in 1930, Wakefield was baking up a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies for her guests. The recipe called for melted chocolate, but Wakefield had run out of baker's chocolate. She took a Nestle chocolate bar, crumbled it into pieces and threw it into her batter, expecting the chocolate pieces to melt during baking. Instead, the chocolate held its shape, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Nestle noticed that sales of its chocolate bars jumped in Mrs. Wakefield's corner of Massachusetts, so they met with her about the cookie, which was fast gaining a reputation among travelers. At Wakefield's suggestion, they began scoring their chocolate (cutting lines into the bar that allow for easier breaking) and then, in 1939, they began selling Nestle Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels. The Wakefield cookie recipe was printed on the back of the package; in exchange, Ruth Wakefield received free chocolate for life.

露丝·韦克菲尔德和他的丈夫曾经做过营养师和食品讲师，后来在波士顿郊外买了一处收费站陈旧的房子。收费站除了收取过路费，还可以向过往的旅客提供快餐及喂养马匹等服务。韦克菲尔德和丈夫却将房子改造成了一个带有餐厅的旅店。1930年某一天，韦克菲尔德要为她的客人们烘焙一些黄油夹心曲奇。做这种食品需要将巧克力融化，但是烘培用的巧克力已经用完了，于是韦克菲尔德把雀巢巧克力条弄碎，扔进了面糊，希望巧克力会在烘焙时融化。然而，这些巧克力还是维持原样，就这样巧克力奇普饼干诞生了。雀巢公司发现自己的巧克力在马萨诸塞州的韦克菲尔德家附近的销量猛增，随后拜访了韦克菲尔德夫妇，谈到了巧克力奇普饼干的事情——这种饼干赢得了过往游客的赞誉。在韦克菲尔德的建议下，雀巢公司开始改良巧克力（在巧克力条上划线以便切碎）。1939年，雀巢公司开始销售“雀巢收费站半甜巧克力食品”。韦克菲尔德的配方就印在包装袋后面；同时作为交换，露丝·韦克菲尔德将终身获得免费的巧克力。

id Paper

8.修正液

Bette Nesmith Graham was not a very good typist. Still, the high school dropout worked her way through the secretarial pool to become the executive secretary for the chairman of the board of the Texas Bank and Trust. It was the 1950s, and the electric typewriter had just been introduced. Secretaries often found themselves retyping entire pages because of one tiny mistake, as the new model's carbon ribbon made it difficult to correct errors.

贝蒂·奈史密斯·格莱姆并不是一个出色的打字员，且高中就辍学了，但她却从一个小小的秘书做到了德克萨斯信托银行行长执行秘书的职位。20世纪50年代，电动打字机才刚刚问世。秘书们常常会由于一个小错误而不得不重打一整页文字，因为在新型的条带复写纸上太难修改了。

One day, Graham watched workers painting a holiday display on a bank window. She noticed that when they made mistakes, they simply added another layer of paint to cover them up, and she thought she could apply that idea to her typing blunders. Using her blender, Graham mixed up a water-based tempera paint with dye that matched her company's stationary. She took it to work and, using a fine watercolor brush, she was able to quickly correct her errors. Soon, the other secretaries were clamoring for the product, which Graham continued to produce in her kitchen. Graham was fired from her job for spending so much time distributing what she called "Mistake Out," but in her unemployment she was able to tweak her mixture, rename the product Liquid Paper and receive a patent in 1958. Even though typewriters have been replaced by computers in many offices, many people still have a bottle or two of that white correction fluid on hand.

某天，格莱姆偶尔看到有工人为庆祝节日在银行窗口上画装饰画，她注意到他们画错了的时候就简单地用一层颜料把错误遮住。格莱姆灵光一现，想到她打字粗心犯错的时候也可以用这种方式解决。她用搅拌机把水性颜料和与公司纸张颜色一致的染料混在一起，再借助一把小巧的水彩笔刷，这样就能在工作时简便快捷地更正自己的错误了。很快，其他秘书也都嚷嚷着想要这种产品，格莱姆只好在自家厨房里不断生产这种产品。由于格莱姆在调配她称为“错误消除神器”的产品上花费了太多时间，她被开除了。但在她失业期间，她不断完善混合比例，把终极成品重命名为修正液，并在1958年取得了专利。即便现在很多办公室都用电脑取代了打字员，很多人仍习惯手里有一两瓶修正液。

Compiler and COBOL Computer Language

7.编译程序和通用商业语言（COBOL）

When we think about advancements in computers, we tend to think about men like Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and Bill Gates. But Admiral Grace Murray Hopper deserves credit for her role in the computer industry. Admiral Hopper joined the military in 1943 and was stationed at Harvard University, where she worked on IBM's Harvard Mark I computer, the first large-scale computer in the United States. She was the third person to program this computer, and she wrote a manual of operations that lit the path for those that followed her. In the 1950s, Admiral Hopper invented the compiler, which translates English commands into computer code. This device meant that programmers could create code more easily and with fewer errors. Hopper's second compiler, the Flow-Matic, was used to program UNIVAC I and II, which were the first computers available commercially. Admiral Hopper also oversaw the development of the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL), one of the first computer programming languages. Admiral Hopper received numerous awards for her work, including the honor of having a U.S. warship named after her.

每当说起计算机方面的成就时，我们很容易联想到查尔斯·巴贝奇、艾伦·图灵和比尔·盖茨等等，但格蕾丝·莫尔·霍珀上将在电脑行业也是个名声赫赫的人物。1943年，霍珀上将参军后被安排在哈佛大学，研究美国国际商用机器公司开发的哈佛马克一号电脑，这是美国首台大型电脑。她是第三个为这台电脑编程的人，并亲手写了一册操作指南，以便让后续参与研究的学会她的编程。20世纪50年代，霍珀上将发明了一种能将英文命令转化为电脑编码的编译程序。使用此装置可更简便地编程，同时减小犯错率。霍珀的第二种编译语言是“the Flow-Matic语言”，被用于第一代商用电脑：通用自动计算机一号和二号。霍珀上将还指导了COBOL语言的发展——这是首批电脑程序语言之一。霍珀上将在职业生涯中获得了无数荣誉，甚至有艘美国军舰都是以她的名字命名的。

red Flare System

6.有色照明弹系统

When Martha Coston was widowed in 1847, she was only 21 years old. She had four children to support, but she hadn't a clue about how to do so. She was flipping through her dead husband's notebooks when she found plans for a flare system that ships could use to communicate at night. Coston requested the system be tested, but it failed.

玛莎·科斯顿在1847年就成为寡妇，当时她才21岁。她要抚养四个孩子，但她不知道该怎样做。当她翻阅她死去的丈夫的笔记簿时，她发现了一些平面图，上面画有可以让船只在夜晚传递信息的照明弹系统。科斯顿为这个系统申请了测试，但是测试失败了。

Coston was undeterred. She spent the next 10 years revising and perfecting her husband's design for a colored flare system. She consulted with scientists and military officers, but she couldn't figure out how to produce flares that were bright and long-lasting while remaining easy to use at the spur of the moment. One night she took her children to see a fireworks display, and that's when she hit upon the idea of applying some pyrotechnic technology to her flare system. The flare system finally worked, and the U.S. Navy bought the rights. The Coston colored flare system was used extensively during the Civil War. Unfortunately, the flare system wasn't the best way for Coston to support her family. According to military documents, Coston produced 1,200,000 flares for the Navy during the Civil War, which she provided at cost. She was owed $120,000, of which she was only paid $15,000; in her autobiography, Coston attributed the Navy's refusal to pay to the fact that she was a woman.

科斯顿不为所动。在接下来的十年里，她不断修改和完善她丈夫设计的有色照明弹系统。她咨询过科学家和军事人员，但她不知道如何制作出既能在短时间内方便使用，又可以持久发出明亮光线的照明弹。一天晚上她带孩子去看烟花，偶然想到了将烟花技术应用到照明弹系统的主意。这个系统终于可以使用了，美国海军买下了专利权。科斯顿有色照明弹系统在内战中得到广泛使用。不幸的是，对科斯顿来说照明弹系统不是养活家人的最好方式。根据军方文件，科斯顿在内战中按成本价为海军生产了120万枚照明弹。她本应该得到12万美元，但是海军只支付她1.5万美元；在她的自传里，科斯顿把海军拒绝付款的原因归咎于她是个女人。

审校：敖有没 来源：前十网