Mary Anderson

Mary Elizabeth Anderson was an American real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist and inventor of the windshield wiper blade. On November 10, 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled from inside the car, called the windshield wiper.

She built the Fairmont Apartments on Highland Avenue soon after settling in. She died on June 27, 1953 (aged 84) at her summer home in Monteagle, Tennessee .

In a visit to New York City in the winter of 1903, in a trolley car on a frosty day, Anderson observed that a trolley car driver struggled to see past the windows because of the falling sleet. When she returned to Alabama she hired a designer for a hand-operated device to keep a windshield clear and had a local company produce a working model.