Just an intriguing snippet…

• • The inventor of the first windscreen wiper was a woman named Mary Anderson who was perturbed to see on a visit to New York from her native Alabama that the drivers of the cities street cars had to stop and get out to clear the snow off the windscreen.
  • Anderson returned home and invented an arm attached to a rubber blade that would operate when the driver pulled a lever.
  • By 1916 most cars were fitted with the device,

In 1917 another woman named Charlotte Bridgewater, invented an automated wind screen clearing device.