Women’s Innovations

From national leadership in the world of academics, banking, filmmaking, technology, philanthropy, and women’s activism to governmental officials, a passionate and skilled team has come together to bring focus to the forgotten accomplishments of women innovators and use those accomplishments to inspire the next generation.

MEET TWO AMAZING WOMEN INNOVATORS

Dr. Gladys Brown West

Photos courtesy of the West family

Dr. Gladys Brown West enabled the GPS with her mathematical modeling of the world.

Inductee US Air Force Space and Missiles Hall of Fame
Recipient Prince Philip Medal by UK Royal Academy of Engineering

As a poor black child born to parents who owned a small farm in Sutherland, Virginia during the height of segregation, Dr. Gladys Brown West was destined to a back-breaking farm life. Instead, West transformed her life through her dogged pursuit of education and her innate mathematical brilliance. The journey took perseverance as she struggled to pay for her education at a historically black public university, then Virginia State College, now University. She chose mathematics as her major, a field largely dominated by white men. However, when she graduated in 1952, while she applied for government work, she could find only public teaching jobs. She continued studying and received a masters in mathematics in 1955 from her alma mater. Finally in 1956 she was hired at the naval base in Dahlgren, only one of only four black employees hired. Like the women depicted in Hidden Figures, West was essential to the astronomical work done there in the 1960s.

Then in the 1970s through 1980s, work refocused. Dr. West led a group of five who developed a mathematical model of the world that provided the framework for GPS. Because she was a government employee, she was not allowed to be publicly engaged in the civil rights movement, but was a silent supporter, focusing her energy on her achievements and earning another masters in Public Administration. According to Dr. West, “I feel proud of myself as a woman, knowing that I can do what I can do. But, as a black woman, that’s another level where you have to prove to a society that hasn’t accepted you for what you are. What I did was keep trying to prove that I was as good as you are.”

Sadly, it was not until 20 years after she retired in 1998 that Dr. West received recognition for her extraordinary contributions in science and publicly thanked for her work with creating GPS. Notably, Dr. West earned her PhD in public administration at age 70!

Her autobiography: https://a.co/d/d4PxucG

A comprehensive digital data base is in the works identifying women innovators throughout time. Send us your favorite forgotten innovator at info@womensinnovations.org

Martha Matilda Harper

Photos Courtesy of Jane Plitt

Martha Matilda Harper is the inventor of the international retail franchising concept and the reclining shampoo chair and cutout sink.

Indentured at the young age of seven, Martha Matilda Harper would remain a Canadian servant with few objective prospects to change her life. Yet, when Harper’s last Canadian employer died and bequeathed his proprietary hair formula to her, she seized the recipe and immigrated to Rochester, NY in 1882 where she remained a servant for six years.

Then, in 1888, she boldly opened the first beauty salon for women (a no-no in the Victorian era) and invented the first reclining shampoo chair and cut-out sink to assure customers their clothing would be spared from messing their lovely clothes or getting soap in the customers’ eyes.

Socialite Bertha Palmer from Chicago came to Rochester and fell in love with Harper’s Shop. She insisted Harper open a shop in time for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair so she could show it off.

After Palmer delivered written signatures from 25 of Palmer’s friends confirming they would patronize the Chicago Harper shop, Harper needed a means to fund her shop expansion. Since bank financing and venture capital were not readily available to women at that time, Harper conceived of a whole new system – international retail franchising, where she would control the training, products, methods, and select all franchisors who would pay for the privilege of being associated with the Harper Method. Not only did Harper successfully open that Chicago shop in time, but she had over 500 shops worldwide. Notably, Harper also pioneered social entrepreneurship since she insisted the first 100 of her shops had to go to poor women enabling them to change their lifetime prospects.

The Harper Method manufacturing arm was sold in 1972, but many retail Harper shops continued operating until 2008.

Her website: www.marthamatildaharper.org

A comprehensive digital data base is in the works identifying women innovators throughout time. Send us your favorite forgotten innovator at info@womensinnovations.org.

“ACT for Alexandria supports efforts that inspire Alexandrians to fulfill their potential. The National Center of Women’s Innovation will be a great resource for people to gain the inspiration and encouragement to pursue STEM work.”
– ACT of Alexandria

Women’s Innovations

Dr. Gladys Brown West

Martha Matilda Harper

“ACT for Alexandria supports efforts that inspire Alexandrians to fulfill their potential. The National Center of Women’s Innovation will be a great resource for people to gain the inspiration and encouragement to pursue STEM work.”

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