Sarah Little Ternbull was the power in the world of material science and Industrial designThe field can be confidently said that most people used something, that the beginning of life on its drawing board, but few know its name. She worked with engineering fabrics as a 3M consultant.
As part of these efforts, she developed a formed cup of a bra, which inspired the shape of the N95 mask. Later, 3M disputed its role in the preparation of the N95 mask. She also worked as a Corning SWARE program for the development of a culinary panel, early food products, storage systems and many other products.
Listen to the podcast
On the support of scientific journalism
If you like this article, consider the opportunity to support our journalism awards SubscriptionWhen buying a subscription, you help to ensure the future of effective stories about discoveries and ideas that form our world today.
[New to this season of Lost Women of Science? Listen to the most recent episodes on Ruby Payne-Scott, Sallie Pero Mead, Vera Peters, Annie Montague Alexander, Emma Unson Rotor, Mária Telkes, Flemmie Kittrell, Rebecca Lee Crumpler and Eunice Newton Foote.]
Lost women science are produced for the ear. Where it is possible, we recommend that you listen to the sound for the most accurate idea of what was said.
Episode transcript
Katie Hafner: I am Katie Hafner, and these are lost women of science: from our mailbox a series of mini -epizodes with the participation of women in science who came to us from you, our listeners.
In today's episode, we hear the rice of her mentor from designer Paul: Sarah Little Ternbull. You may not know the name of Sarah, but I would argue that you heard about one of her inventions. Plus … In the process of reporting this episode, we found that the story of Sarah illuminates the problem, which we encounter a lot when we look at the history of science …
Producer Johanna Mayer brings us his story.
Johanna Mayer: I want to tell you about this photo I came across recently.
It seems that it was taken somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s. Four business people are in a circle. Two men smoke long cigarettes, a third in a suit. And they all look down.
They look at a woman. With a hairstyle with a murderer a hive, a giant flower attached to her sweater and a large shining smile.
Paula rice: & Hairsp; Sarah Little Ternbull, and she was small.
Johanna Mayer: Sarah was about 4'11 ” – she was born Sarah Finkelstein, but everyone called her“ little sarah ”, and she made the name of her own. Sarah began to go professionally by name … Sarah Little.
I am Joanna Mayer, and this is from our mailbox, a series from Lost Women of Science. Today we are talking about Sarah Littlbullah and about the big legacy that she left, with the covers to the sneakers to the product, with which many of us have become too familiar when the pandemia Covid-19: Mask N95.
Paula Rice wrote to us about Sarah – Paula is the director of the interdisciplinary designer company, and Sarah was its mentor.
Paula rice: I knew Sarah for 30 years. I can assure you that something in your life today has been developed or inspired by Sarah Little.
Johanna Mayer: Sarah grew up in Brooklyn in the 1920s, in the Russian family of immigrants. They were poor, but Sarah managed to find the beauty and elegant design in unexpected places, such as skillfully located vegetables in the Grace. As a teenager, she won a scholarship at the Parsons Design School, where she studied advertising design. And after graduation, she worked as an editor of the decor The house is beautifulPopular interior magazine. In the journal, she promoted ideas that would make us more thoughtful about how we use space and consume materials. For example, she wrote articles about the advantages of life with a neighbor in the room and organizing small premises.
Paula rice: She will practice what she preached, in which she led a very simple life with fewer things, but with great quality lasts longer.
Johanna Mayer: Sarah lived in an apartment with an area of 400 square feet. She had very little clothes, but she had a custom -made one to perfectly approach her.
Paula rice: She really turned out the planned obsolescence and material waste of resources. She believed that we should serve as the conscience of companies that hire us. We need to do the right things.
Johanna Mayer: It was Sarah's leading philosophy – right. And in 1958, she decided to convey her ideas in the company and founded her own design -consulting business. And with such a career, Sarah Little Ternbull has become a key device in the world of applied science and industrial design.
Paula rice: Sarah was an absolute power station and was not at all hesitate to ask what she needed.
Johanna Mayer: In fact, she was such a woman who could keep her in the circle of businessmen. Large companies began to notice. Among them are 3M, a giant company that produced everything from a masking tape to sandpaper to a synthetic rubber used in space boots. In 1958, they hired Sarah. She worked in a gift packaging and fabric unit, but she was not there to wrap gifts. She was there to experiment with the new material with which 3M worked: the formed, non -woven technology.
Paula rice: Her genius was in material science.
Johanna Mayer: Although Sarah did not have a degree in the field of material science, she worked with all types of materials, mainly of which were made of fibers that were woven together, which left these tiny spaces between threads. And when she saw this new high -tech fabric, which was made of polymers that were molten Together – therefore, the elimination of these tiny gaps – she knew that it was a lot of potential.
Paula rice: She had a clear understanding of the science behind the things that she imagined and what she wanted to design. And she always started with the question “Why?”
Johanna Mayer: In fact, when the senior leadership asked Sarah to present a presentation, this is what she called: “Why?” In the presentation, Sarah dug into this non -diving technology and all its many potential applications. She came up with 100 original ideas of the product, including some whose effects would affect the entire globe: mold cup of a bra. Instead of excessively stiff and uncomfortable shape, mold adjacent to the chest – and with a smaller number of seam lines!
But, according to Paula, this mold a cup of a bra would have paved the way for another invention, one with much further, and effects …
Paula rice: Sarah was much ahead of understanding what would happen. She was much more influential and experienced than people know.
Johanna Mayer: While she worked with 3M, Sarah also took care of three sick family members. Both her parents and her sister were dying, everything at the same time meant that Sarah spent many Time in hospitals. And she began to notice the masks that the doctors wore – a flat piece of fabric, with a tie behind.
Maybe it was the boredom of long hours spent in hospital wards; Maybe it was a race brain that cannot be tamed; Maybe it was a project designed to distract ourselves from her own intensive grief – we cannot say for sure. But Sarah had an idea. What if she could take this forming bra, which she developed … and turn it into a better medical mask?
Johanna Mayer: In 1972, 3m made a mask … And it looked very similar to a molded cup for a bra! 3M will change the mask over the next few years, but it turned out that the vision of Sarah is a product, born in a real problem, was in reality.
When Covid pandemia appeared in 2020, news agencies published countless stories about Sarah’s contribution to the mask, illuminating this incredible woman and her work. It seemed that after decades, Sarah finally received a long recognition for her saving invention.
But where the story becomes complicated: 3m disputes that Sarah invented the mask.
We turned to 3M to ask about this story. And, according to the representative, the company worked on the design of a molded mask in the form of a cup made of non-woven materials back in 1957, a year before Sarah began to work with them. And in 1959, two scientists in 3M submitted a patent statement, which included, quoted, “masks for people with porous breathing, used by surgeons, doctors, dentists, nurses and industrial workers subjected to a dusty or polluted atmosphere.”
In 2022, a company representative also told Toronto star That there are laptops that show that the idea has already beaten before the arrival of Sarah.
But Paula He says that Sarah lacks a loan in which a loan should be received, and that 3M hides its role in the development of the mask.
The history of Sarah and N-95 masks illustrates the problem with which we encounter a lot in the history of science.
Often there is a romantic image of a lonely genius who has a breakthrough, and suddenly causes a fresh invention from the air. This is known as the “theory of a great man” – the idea that extraordinary minds and leaders are born, not made, and that scientific progress is slow and stable, emphasized by gigantic jumps forward by exceptional people. In fact, such types of “yeah!” Moments are rare.
Most often, the process of invention is much less dramatic – almost boring. Confused. And, importantly, we usually have a whole teams People to thank for breakthroughs. But the “theory of a great man” is removed from the language much easier than, say, “the theory of hardworking and collections of the command”.
Thus, regardless of the truth behind the invention of the N95 mask, the story of Sarah shows us that … science is sometimes dirty! Disputes about ideas, for a loan … All this is for the course.
But whatever the degree of contribution of Sarah Little Ternbull to N95, incredibly, the mask was just a footnote in her long career.
Paula rice: Her work was so diverse. For example, she was interested in developing new food, such as soy -based alternatives. She played an important role in the development of the prepared Clear Glass panel. She was in a team that worked on an early microwave oven. And she loved the storage system. She is very, very organized. And so she developed many products around the storage.
Johanna Mayer: After a career for more than 70 years, Sarah died in 2015 at the age of 97. Paula Rice was part of a group of friends who took care of Sarah in her old age.
Remembering this photograph, which I described earlier – the one that with Sarah in the center of the group of men – I wonder how many other women like it in it.
Paula rice: I came to the conclusion that she was too smart to be fully recognized by the crazy people of the middle of the century. Conducting this study, I contacted other women who found the same thing that was true for their mentors. And yes, it is disappointing.
The legacy of Sarah and her mission was to help the public understand the design and understand that we have the opportunity to do things with the help of wonderful scientific discoveries and technologies. But we also have to do things only because we can.
Katie Hafner: Thanks to Paule rice for writing to us about Sarah Littlebullah. This episode “Lost women of science”: Joanna Mayer was produced from our mailbox and designed by Hans of the HSU. Checking the facts of lecture. Our executive producers are Amy scarf and me, Katie Hafner. Lizzy Junan composes our music. We receive our funding from the Alfred P. Slan and the Ann Voichitski Foundation. PRX spreads us, and our partner of the publishing house is Scientific American.
Here, in Lost Women of Science, our goal is to save women scientists from the jaws of obscurity, but we need your help! If you know about a woman -scientists who were lost in history, let us know! You can switch to our website to send us an email, we are lost. You will also find a phone number in our tip line. We love to receive calls to the tip of the tip.
Thank you for listening!
Episode guests
Paula Fig
Master
Joanna Mayer
Producer
Joanna Mayer
Further reading:
ABDEFATAH, RUN and RAMTIN Arablouei. “As one woman inspired the design for the N95 mask.”NPRNPR, May 21, 2020, rice, Paula and Larry Eisenbach.
“Ask why.”Design MuseumApril 6, 2020.
“About Sarah Little Ternbull.” Center for the Institute of DesignField
Corbett, Kelly. True Story: The former beautiful editor House Beautiful inspired the N95 mask during the design of the brasField
