Mary Walton was a 19th century American inventor who devised methods for minimising the effects of pollution
Mary Walton
@Women Inventors, Birthday and Childhood
Biography
Personal Details
- Birthday: 1827
- Nationality: American
- Famous: Discoverers, Inventors, Women Inventors, Inventors & Discoverers
- City/State: New Yorkers
- Birth Place: New York City, United States of America
- Gender: Female
- Born in: New York City, United States of America
Mary Walton born at
New York City, United States of America
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Birth Place
Not much is known about Mary Walton’s childhood or early life. From her own accounts it is known that she had no brothers; so her father—a progressive minded man—encouraged his daughters to get a good education and pursue their intellectual interests.
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Childhood & Early Life
Mary Walton lived in an era when the industrial revolution spawned a number of factories and manufacturing units in the country. The industries in the American society were thriving, but they also gave birth to a new problem: rampant pollution of an unprecedented scale.
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Later Years
An intelligent and creative woman, Mary Walton was an independent inventor. She was thoroughly disturbed by the thick smoke bellowing out of the locomotive and factory chimneys and worked hard to find a solution for this.
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Later Years
She developed a method of reducing the environmental hazards caused by the emission of smoke from locomotive, industrial and residential chimneys, and patented this method in 1879. It is believed her method considerably helped to bring down the dangers posed by the growing levels of pollution in the nation.
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Later Years
She lived near the railway tracks and found the deafening noise produced by trains as they hollered past her home to be particularly sickening. The elevated railway systems were rapidly expanding in New York City, and so were the rising levels of noise pollution.
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Later Years
She worked in her basement using a model railroad track and performed experiments on it to devise a method of reducing the noise caused by trains running over the tracks. Finally she was able to create a system that deadened the sound produced by the trains and had it patented in 1881.
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Later Years
In 1879, she patented a device that deflected the smoke and emissions from chimneys into water tanks, later flushing them out into the cities’ sewage system. This method helped to minimize the smoke that was emitted into the atmosphere.
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Major Works
Another of her major inventions helped to reduce the vibrations and noise pollution caused by trains running on the elevated railway systems that were becoming increasingly popular in New York City. This invention of hers earned her much recognition and financial gains.
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Major Works