Alabama
Meet the American who invented windshield wipers, Mary Anderson, Alabama entrepreneur
Mary Anderson cleared glass windshields and broke glass ceilings.
The southern belle, born in Alabama in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, gave the world one of its most widely used safety devices.
Anderson patented windshield wipers.
She was, in many ways, a real-life Scarlett O’Hara of “Gone with the Wind” movie fame.
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Anderson was born to means on a southern plantation but raised in a society devastated by war.
It was also a society that suffered a tragic loss of human capital. Male capital. More than 1 in 5 military-age men (about 22%) in the Confederacy were killed in the Civil War, according to several sources.
American real estate developer, rancher and inventor of the first practical windshield wiper Mary Anderson is shown posing for a portrait circa 1900. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Southerners responded with indomitable spirit. Anderson was among a new era of entrepreneurs and innovators burning with determination to overcome adversity.
Many of them were women, later represented by the fictional icon O’Hara.
Anderson built apartments in Alabama, herded cattle in California and, following a winter trolley trip in New York City, devised a way to keep the world truckin’ in a tempest.
“She didn’t have a father; she didn’t have a husband, and she didn’t have a son.”
“She didn’t have a father; she didn’t have a husband, and she didn’t have a son,” one of her descendants, Sara-Scott Wingo, said in a 2017 interview with NPR.
“And the world was kind of run by men back then.”
Cattle calls & trolley cars
Mary Elizabeth Anderson was born on Feb. 19, 1866, on Burton Hill Plantation in Greene County, Alabama, to John C. and Rebecca Anderson.
The Civil War had ended only 10 months earlier. The conflict was followed by the economic hardship and social upheaval of the Reconstruction Era across the South.
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind.” O’Hara is the archetype of the southern woman who was determined to help the region emerge from the devastation of the Civil War. (Getty Images)
The Anderson family suffered its own loss in 1870. Mary was just four years old when her father died.
“Mary and her sister, Fannie, and mother continued to live off the proceeds from his estate,” the late Dr. J. Fred Olive III, of the University of Alabama Birmingham, wrote for the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
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The Anderson women moved to Birmingham and entered the real-estate business, building the Fairmont Apartments at the corner of 21st Street and Highland Avenue.
Mary Anderson also sought adventure and/or fortune out west.
In 1893, at age 27, she moved to Fresno, California, where she spent several years managing a vineyard and cattle ranch before returning to Birmingham.
The Anderson women moved to Birmingham, Alabama (shown above) and entered the real-estate business. (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
She also visited New York City in late 1902 and experienced northern weather, apparently for the first time.
“While riding an electric streetcar during a snowstorm, she noticed that the motorman operating the streetcar was shivering,” Charles Carey wrote in the 2002 book, “American Inventors, Entrepreneurs and Business Visionaries.”
“She noticed that the motorman operating the streetcar was shivering … He was constantly having to slide open the middle pane so he could wipe off the glass.”
The author also wrote, “Snow was sticking to the windshield, and he was constantly having to slide open the middle pane so he could wipe off the glass.”
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The driver’s vision was impaired, as was his operational ability. The situation created safety hazards for both pedestrians and passengers.
The winter ride exposed to the winter elements was likely miserable for a woman who spent her life in warmth and sunshine surrounded by Alabama bougainvillea and California farmland.
People are shown boarding street cars in winter, New York City, circa 1900. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“Upon returning to Alabama,” writes Carey, “Anderson gave much thought to the motorman’s plight.”
‘Teased and laughed at’
Anderson spent the next several months devising a way for drivers to clean their windshields while still inside their vehicles.
She appears to have possessed an innate mechanical capability. There is no indication that Anderson ever trained as a mechanic or engineer.
But she emerged with a clever mechanism that displayed many of the hallmarks of windshield wipers today. She applied for the “window cleaning device” patent in June 1903 and received it in Nov. 1903.
Entrepreneur Mary Anderson’s 1903 patent for a “window cleaning device.” We know it today as the windshield wiper. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office/Public Domain)
Modern windshield wipers operate via powerful little motors that deliver high torque at low speed with the twist of a knob. Drivers, with Anderson’s original device, operated wipers manually with a lever.
“The lever caused a spring-loaded arm with a rubber blade to swing across the windshield and then back again to [its] original position, thus removing droplets of rain or flakes of snow from the windshield’s surface,” noted Lemelson-MIT, a program devoted to innovation, in its online biography of Anderson.
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“It is simply necessary for [the driver] to take hold of the handle and turn it in one direction or the other to clean the pane,” reads the patent application.
“Similar devices had been made earlier,” Lemelson-MIT noted. But Anderson’s “was the first that actually worked.”
Anderson’s wiper worked. But it didn’t sell.
A man operates the windshield wipers on his snow-covered car at night. Circa 1955. (Harold M. Lambert/Lambert/Getty Images)
The inventor “was teased and laughed at by many people because of her idea for the windshield wipers,” said MIT-Lemelson.
Anderson ran into a stonewall of doubt and opposition from the transportation industry and auto titans.
“We regret to state we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale,” said one rejection letter from the Canadian firm of Dinning and Eckenstein.
Anderson “was teased and laughed at by many people because of her idea for the windshield wipers.”
“Through no fault of her own, her invention was simply ahead of its time, and other companies and entrepreneurs were able to profit off her original ideas,” reports the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
A vision with rhythm
Mary Anderson died on June 27, 1953, at her summer home in Monteagle, Tennessee.
She was 87 years old and is interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham.
Anderson was a “widely known Birmingham resident and owner of the Fairmont Apartments,” said her obituary in the Birmingham Post-Herald.
Mary Anderson of Alabama invented the windshield wiper after a winter trip to New York City, where she watched a trolley-car driver struggle to keep the vehicle’s windshield clean during a snowstorm. (Public Domain)
Her rights to the patent expired in 1920 – just as autos were exploding in popularity and the need to operate them safely in bad weather grew more obvious even to auto titans.
“In 1922, Cadillac began building cars with windshield wipers as a standard feature,” reports the National Inventors Hall of Fame — which inducted Anderson in 2011.
“The rest of the automotive industry followed suit not long after.”
Anderson lived long enough to see the world embrace the vision she had as a young woman in New York City in 1902.
Wiper blades sit on the cockpit windows of an Antonov OKB AN-70 aircraft as it stands on display prior to the opening of the Paris Air Show in Paris, France, 2013. (Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Windshield wipers today are found on almost every vehicle in the world — planes, trains and automobiles.
They’re on boats and trolleys too.
“Windshield wipers clapping time/I was holdin’ Bobby’s hand in mine.” — “Me and Bobby McGee”
Windshield wipers are frontline troops in defense of public safety. They give us eyesight any time Mother Nature drops a blindfold of snow, sleet or rain around our vehicles’ window on the world.
Anderson’s invention also keeps the economy, the constant flow of goods and services, running 24/7.
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Transportation would come to an immediate halt any time bad weather hit a city, a highway, a state or an entire region, without windshield wipers.
Anderson’s vision even keeps the beat on memorable moments in our lives and in pop culture.
Windshield wipers, among many other uses, provide a built-in paper-clip for parking tickets. (Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Songwriter Kris Kristofferson captured the rhythmic reliability of windshield wipers in “Me and Bobby McGee,” his atmospheric American anthem about searching for freedom and love on a rainy night in Louisiana.
Windshield wipers are so essential to modern life we don’t even notice them — unless they’re used as a giant paper-clip for parking tickets.
“Windshield wipers clapping time/I was holdin’ Bobby’s hand in mine/We sang every song that driver knew,” Janis Joplin, and other performers, have sung in popular versions of the tune set to the beat of a windshield wiper metronome.
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Windshield wipers are so essential to modern life we don’t even notice them — unless they’re used as a giant paper-clip for parking tickets. It’s perhaps the only flaw in Mary Anderson’s essential innovation.
“We’re all really proud of her,” Sara-Scott Wingo, one of her few descendants, said in her 2017 NPR interview.
Mary Anderson, shown in center, patented the windshield wiper in 1903. Her innovation has allowed vehicles to move safely in almost any weather condition. (Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/picture alliance; Michael Ochs Archives; Fox Photo, all via Getty Images)
“I have three daughters. We talk about Mary Anderson a lot. And we all sort of feel like we want to be open and receptive to sort of our own Mary Anderson moments.”
To read more stories in this unique “Meet the American Who…” series from Fox News Digital, click here.
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Alabama
Husband, 19, fatally shot wife, 24, himself at Alabama hospital moments after welcoming their first child
A husband fatally shot his wife before turning the gun on himself at an Alabama hospital just moments after they welcomed their first child on Sunday.
Kynath Terry Jr., 19, gunned down 24-year-old Precious Johnson before fatally shooting himself inside the Baptist Health Brookwood Hospital around 9:30 p.m. Sunday night, WTVM 13 reported.
Johnson delivered a healthy baby just before she was murdered. It’s not immediately clear if the baby was present during the shooting, but police said that Terry and Johnson were the only ones injured.
Terry’s mother told the outlet that the couple were having some marital issues leading up to Johnson’s due date, but nothing that made her fear her son would become violent.
She told the outlet that Terry completed Army National Guard training before tying the knot with Johnson.
She noted that Johnson didn’t want Terry’s side of the family at the hospital for her child’s birth, but it’s unclear if anyone from the mother-to-be’s own family was there.
The hospital was plunged into a lockdown “out of an abundance of caution” while police investigated reports of a shooting. It wasn’t lifted until hours later when they determined there was “no active threat to patients, team members or the public,” the outlet reported.
The Homewood Police Department described the tragedy as “an apparent murder-suicide and is domestic in nature.”
Danne Howard, the president of the Alabama Hospital Association, told the outlet that the chilling attack “was an isolated incident” unlike anything she’d encountered during her three decades working in the state.
Howard said, in the wake of the tragedy, the Baptist Health Brookwood Hospital would undergo a security overhaul implementing “lessons learned” from a mandated after-action report.
Just three months ago, in a town six miles outside of Homewood, a beloved sports reporter was fatally shot by her husband before taking his own life. Their 3-year-old son, who was unharmed, led his grandfather to his parents’ bodies.
Hegseth on Iran: ‘This is not Iraq. This is not endless.’
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said operations on Iran won’t be “endless” like Iraq.
The United States and Israel-led attacks on Iran are having an impact in Central Alabama.
The military actions that began Saturday targets the military forces of Iran and the nation’s ability to build nuclear weapons.
In Montgomery, Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex have stepped up security so that all entry points will have a 100 percent ID check, the bases said on social media. The Trusted Traveler Program is suspended, which allowed Department of Defense identification holders to vouch for passengers.
Visitors without base access will have to go through the visitor center to get a pass.
Central Alabama residents react to the Iran attacks
For Travis Jackson of Montgomery, the attacks bring back memories, bad memories. He served one tour in Iraq from 2007-2008 with the U.S. Army. He attained the rank of sergeant before leaving the service and has worked the last 10 years as a community activist and diversity, equality and inclusion coordinator.
“I had a flashback of being overseas again,” he said when he first heard news of the attack. “The first thing I thought of was corporate greed. Of yet again seeing what has transpired throughout the years of any war overseas.”
He feels the attacks are a mistake.
“It’s going to be detrimental to the economy, notably with the increase in oil prices,” he said.
Removing the current regime in Iran and establishing a more western friendly country could improve hopes for a more stable Middle East, said Amy Stephens of Elmore County.
“I don’t know if there will ever be peace there,” Stephens said. “But Iran has been the causing trouble over there for almost 50 years.”
Ray Roberts of Prattville served in Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990 and 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. He served in an ordinance company with the Alabama Army National Guard. He was a sergeant when he left the service and now works as a draftsman at a Montgomery manufacturing plant.
“It wasn’t a surprise,” Roberts said of the attacks. “President Trump had said they were coming. When he says something like that, he means it. I am glad we are working with Israel so it’s not just the United States. I wonder if Europe and some of the other Gulf nations will join the attacks.”
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com. To support his work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey was honored for her lifelong dedication to youth and community service during the 12th annual Black Warrior Council Boy Scouts of America Circle of Honor awards luncheon.
The ceremony, which was held Feb. 27 at the Embassy Suites hotel in downtown Tuscaloosa, serves as a fundraiser for the council’s scouting program.
The Circle of Honor award is presented to people in west central Alabama whose livelihood and actions reflect the same values of the Black Warrior Boy Scouts. Recipients have also shown advocacy for youth and leadership in the community.
Past recipients of the award include Terry Saban, Nick Saban, former U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, scientist and philanthropist Thomas Joiner, pharmacist and retailer James I. Harrison Jr., civic leader Mary Ann Phelps and more.
Cathy Randall, a Tuscaloosa businesswoman, educator and philanthropist, presented Ivey with the award. Randall was inducted into the Circle of Honor in 2025 along with her late husband, Pettus.
Ivey said she was grateful to receive the honor by the Black Warrior Council and highlighted the importance of public service.
“I’m proud to have dedicated my life to public service, there’s no more noble calling than to uplift and empower lives,” said Ivey during the Feb. 27 ceremony.
Ivey thanked the scouting organizations, including the Black Warrior Council for its contributions to educational opportunities, economic development, and public safety.
“In particular, I’m proud of the work done by our Scouting organizations like the Black Warrior Council, who lay a foundation for successful future in both our young people and our state, thank you for all you do to build a stronger Alabama by changing lives and preparing our future leaders,” said Ivey, a native of Camden in Wilcox County.
Ivey is wrapping up her second term as governor after a long career spent primarily in government.
After graduating from Auburn University in 1967, Ivey worked as a high school teacher and a bank officer. She served as reading clerk for the Alabama House of Representatives under then-Speaker Joseph C. McCorquodale and she served as assistant director at the Alabama Development Office.
In 2002, Ivey was elected to the first of two terms as Alabama’s treasurer and in 2010, she was elected to the first of two terms as lieutenant governor. On April 10, 2017, Ivey was sworn in as Alabama’s 54th governor after the resignation of Robert Bentley. She filled out the rest of Bentley’s term before winning the gubernatorial election in 2018 and she was re-elected in 2022.
She will leave office at the end of this year.
She is the first Republican woman to serve as Alabama’s governor but she’s the second woman to hold the state’s top executive office. Tuscaloosa County native Lurleen B. Wallace, a Democrat, became Alabama’s first female governor in 1966.
Circle of Honor luncheon raises nearly $200,000
Also during the ceremony, retired DCH Health System administrator Sammy Watson, who served as the event’s emcee, announced that the council had raised $197,000 through the luncheon that day.
Proceeds from the lunch will be used to expand Boy Scouts programs, making them available to over 3,000 young people in west central Alabama.
The Boy Scouts of America is the nation’s leading outdoor education and character development program. The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
Reach Jasmine Hollie at JHollie@usatodayco.com. To support her work, please subscribe to The Tuscaloosa News.
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