Among the legions of men who contributed to the design of modern cars, stands one woman, without whose contributions driving would not be nearly as easy — or safe. On a trip to New York City one winter, riding a toasty trolley car, she noticed the driver had to stick his hand out the window to wipe snow that accumulated on the windshield. On several occasions the driver stuck his head out to see. Anderson thought there should be a better way to accomplish that wiping, and created a simple device to do it.

On this day, November 10, in 1903, Mary Anderson was granted a patent, her first, for a “window cleaning device for electric cars and other vehicles to remove snow, ice or sleet from the window.” Essentially, she had created an automatic windshield wiper blade.

The blade was to be operated from inside the car, by means of a crank — a great improvement over the previous method of sticking one’s hand out into the frost. But whether because of sexism or shortsightedness, the Canadian car company that Anderson pitched her device to refused to make it, saying it was impractical. Once Anderson’s 7 year patent ran out, every car manufacturer started to use wiper blades. Anderson never made a penny from her invention.