Marion Donovan

She invented a waterproof diaper cover and sold her patent for $1M.

In the late 1940s, Marion Donovan was raising three kids in Westport, Connecticut.

Every day was the same: cloth diapers, soaked crib sheets, and rubber baby pants that gave her baby rashes.

So she started experimenting.

She cut up a shower curtain and stitched together a leakproof diaper cover.

Then she refined it, using parachute nylon for breathability, replacing pins with snap fasteners, and adding a pocket for an absorbent insert.

She called it the Boater.

It didn’t chafe.

It didn’t leak.

It didn’t cause diaper rash.

When she pitched it to manufacturers, they dismissed her outright.

“No woman has asked us for that,” they said. “They’re happy with what they have.”

So she sold it herself.

In 1949, Saks Fifth Avenue put the Boater on shelves.

It was an instant hit.

She was granted U.S. Patent No. 2,556,800 in 1951.

Then sold her company and rights to Keko Corp for $1M. The equivalent of over $10M today.

She used that success to go further.

She began developing a fully disposable diaper... one that wicked moisture away from the skin using absorbent paper.

Again, she got shut down.

No paper manufacturer would take the idea seriously.

Ten years later, Pampers brought the same concept to market and built an empire on it.

Between 1951 and 1996, she secured 20 patents, including:
– A 30-garment compact hanger (The Big Hangup)
– A soap dish that drained directly into the sink
– An elastic cord that helped zip up dresses with back zippers (The Zippity-Do)
– A one-handed flossing device called the DentaLoop
– And a hybrid checkbook with built-in recordkeeping

At 41, she enrolled at Yale.

She graduated with a degree in architecture (one of just three women in her class) and eventually designed her own home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

In 2015, 17 years after her death, Marion Donovan was finally inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.