KarunaNews Story

Winter morning commutes would be frostier without Margaret A. Wilcox, a mechanical engineer born in Chicago in 1838, who identified a need for heating in railway cars even before automobiles became commonplace on American streets. In 2020, her invention of a system of water pipes running along the railway car floor, was named one of Inventors Digest’s top 10 patents filed by women. In 1893, she received a patent under her name for the invention, which formed the basis of subsequent vehicle heating systems. The car heater was just one invention for which Wilcox secured patents. Her first, in 1890, was for a combined clothes and dish washer. Two years later, she patented a combined cooking and water-heating stove that could both boil water and heat an entire home via a radiator system. She also patented a dough mixer, as well as a spring-loaded suspended jumping swing for exercise in 1905.