Eglin, Ellen
1849-unknown · Contribution: 1888
Household & Domestic Inventions
Improved clothes-wringer design

Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1849-unknown
- Active since
- 1888
- Category
- Household & Domestic Inventions
Impact on the world
Eglin's story lays bare the racial economics of 19th-century invention: her useful design succeeded commercially only after she sold it away for a pittance to a white buyer.
Sources
- Stanford Technology Law Review (Centering Black Women Inventors)
2 more sources and references are available to members.
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