Marion Donovan: Disposable Diapers
Parents should pay particular attention to this invention. It has saved many desperate parents during a baby mess. In the ’40s, new mothers had very few options for diapers. There was cloth… and that was pretty much it. Cloth diapers used to be the only method – but with that came issues such as washing them regularly and keeping enough on hand. The daughter of an inventor, Marion Donovan’s first patent was actually for a diaper cover. Her original disposable diaper was made with shower curtains. Donovan used her sewing machine to design and perfect a reusable, leakproof diaper cover that did not, like the rubber baby pants of the time, created diaper rash. Donovan called her diaper the “Boater” because it helped babies “stay afloat.” The final product was actually made of nylon parachute cloth and featured an additional innovation: Donovan had replaced safety pins with metal and plastic snaps. This new method helped keep children and clothes cleaner and dryer, not to mention helping with rashes. But, of course, diaper companies at first ignored her patent.
The diaper covers’ debut came at New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue in 1949, where they were, unsurprisingly, an instant success. Donovan’s patent was granted in 1951. By that time, Donovan had begun an even more essential innovation: the disposable paper diaper. This was not as easy to create as it may sound, since in order to prevent a rash, a diaper’s material must “wick” the moisture away from the baby’s skin, rather than absorbing the moisture and retaining it inertly. After much experimentation, Donovan designed a composition of sturdy, absorbent paper that did the job well. Surprisingly, Donovan did not have instant success with this idea. She toured the major U.S. paper companies and was roundly laughed at for proposing such an unnecessary and impractical item. It took nearly ten years for someone to capitalize on Donovan’s idea: namely, Victor Mills, creator of Pampers®.