Wouldn’t we expect a woman to think of ways to keep something clean? An American woman by the name of Mary Anderson filed the patent application for a “window cleaning device”.
It is hard to imagine driving with rain pouring onto the windscreen, without a wiper to clear your line of sight. But interestingly, Anderson wasn’t driving in the rain or even travelling in a car when she was struck by a brainwave for the solution to clear water off glass on a moving vehicle.
The first prototype was hand-operated and basically comprised a strip of rubber sliding in an arc on the glass about a fixed centre. Anderson’s patent was granted as early as 1903, even before Ford Model Ts were rolling off assembly lines.
By 1916, wipers were standard features on cars, and of course, companies such as Bosch and Delco had already fitted motors to the swing-arms of wipers. 
