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Message: <blockquote data-quote="moreluck" data-source="post: 1447944" data-attributes="member: 1246">Nov. 10, 1903     On this day, the patent office awards U.S. Patent No. 743,801 to a Birmingham, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/alabama" target="_blank">Alabama</a> woman named Mary Anderson for her "window cleaning device for electric cars and other vehicles to remove snow, ice or sleet from the window." When she received her patent, Anderson tried to sell it to a Canadian manufacturing firm, but the company refused: The device had no practical value, it said, and so was not worth any money. Though mechanical windshield wipers were standard equipment in passenger cars by around 1913, Anderson never profited from the invention.</blockquote>