Mary Anderson

Mary Anderson

 

Who invited the wind shield wiper? People may ask; it’s quite known actually. A woman named Mary Anderson born in Alabama in town called Greene County in February 19 1866. Mary Anderson was the daughter of John C. and Rebecca she had one sister named Fannie. Mary’s father died when she was 4. In 1889, they moved to Birmingham and built the Fairmont Apartment building at 1211 21st Street South on the corner of Highland Avenue.

 Anderson left home in 1893 at age 27 to operate a cattle ranch and vineyard in Fresno, California, Mary Anderson had many occupations she did; real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist and was the inventor of the windshield wiper blade. Early in the twentieth century, Anderson traveled to New York City while riding in a trolley there; she noticed that the motorman had to remove snow and sleet from the front window by stopping the trolley, getting out, and cleaning the windows by hand. When she returned to Birmingham she sketched a design for a hand-operated device and had a local company produce a working model. She applied for, and was granted, a 17-year patent for a windshield wiper. In 1905, she wrote a Canadian firm about purchasing the patent, but the company saw no commercial value in the device and declined to produce it saying "we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale."

After the patent expired in 1920 and the automobile manufacturing business grew exponentially, windshield wipers using Anderson's basic design became standard equipment. During this time the sisters briefly owned a "summer home" on Broadway Street in Edgewood. They built the Fairmont Apartments on Highland Avenue at 21st Street South (the present site of 2101 Highland Avenue) in 1913 and served as resident managers. Anderson continued to manage the Fairmont Apartments and cared for her nephews, Armistead and Thornton Nelson after her sister's death.

 She herself died, at the age of 87, in another summer house she owned in Monteagle, Tennessee. At the time of her death she was the oldest member of South Highland Presbyterian Church. Her funeral was conducted by Frank Mathes at South Highland and she was buried at Elmwood Cemetery.