When Margaret A. Wilcox developed the car heater, she did it in an era where being a mechanical engineer was a rarity—and which was even more difficult for a woman. Every time you warm up your icy extremities behind the wheel on a cold winter day, you have Wilcox to thank.
Born in Chicago in 1838, Wilcox spend her life designing machines that were intended to make life a little easier. And in her late 20s, Wilcox discovered a problem: the few folks who actually owned and drove vehicles were suffering from icy fingers when it got cold. When you think about cars from back in the day, they generally weren’t enclosed, and if they were, you weren’t dealing with any kind of insulation or comfort. Cars were still pretty rudimentary.
Wilcox, then, started experimenting with a really cool idea. She figured that, since engines create a lot of heat, she could run a channel of air through the engine and then send it back into the cockpit. It was a pretty genius concept, one that hadn’t been considered before. And Wilcox received a patent for her idea in November of 1893.
It wasn’t an easy road, though. Wilcox had patented previous ideas—like a combination clothes-and-dishwasher that could tackle two washing tasks at once—but it was illegal for women to do so under their own name at the time. Wilcox had to file that previous patent under her husband’s name. But by 1893, women were allowed to file patents. So, she was able to receive full credit for her invention.
That said, not everyone loved the idea because it was still pretty rudimentary. Significantly, there was no way to regulate temperature. Drivers were just subjected to an onslaught of hot engine air that would progressively get hotter the longer they drove. So, you could either have icy fingers or burning ones. It was up to you.
But Wilcox’s idea is still the basis for car heaters today. Today, hot coolant rom a vehicle’s engine is passed through a tube, which exchanges heat between the coolant and the cabin air. When you warm the air, it warms the cabin. And we now have a temperature control system that can blend the heated air with the cooler air outside to help create the most comfortable temperature possible.
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