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21/51
1888
Black Woman Inventor missing from the Patent Record
Washington, DC
Ellen Eglin developed a patented improvement to the clothes-wringer and sold it to "an agent for $18." “You know I am Black and if it was known that a negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer.” Her wringer was taken up by the American Wringer Company and was very profitable. She planned to unveil another invention in her own name at the Women’s International Industrial Inventors Congress (WIIIC), but she never made it there.
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