Charlotte Bridgwood

Charlotte Bridgwood (née Dunn, 18 August 1861 – 20 August 1929) was a Canadian vaudeville performer and inventor. She is the mother to Florence Lawrence, regarded as the “first movie star” and inventor of the turn signal, traffic light, and brake light.

Theatre
Charlotte Bridgwood, known by the stage name “Lotta Lawrence,” was the lead actress for the Lawrence Dramatic Company, which she also managed. She went on to act in many movies with her daughter, including Daniel Boone/Pioneer Days in America and The Shaughraun. While her daughter continued acting in film, Charlotte returned to stage productions.

Automotive Advancements
Charlotte Bridgwood was president of the Bridgwood Manufacturing Company. She was an automobile enthusiast. She decided to improve Mary Anderson's manual windshield wipers, in which people had to use levers to operate the windshield wipers. Through her manufacturing company, she invented automatic windshield wipers that she called "Electric Storm Windshield Cleaner". She patented the first electrically powered windshield wiper in 1917, improving previous manually-operated wipers such as the one patented by Mary Anderson in 1905. However, her wiper used rollers rather than blades and did not catch on.

Patents
In October 1917, Charlotte received a patent for the first automatic windshield cleaner. However, she never brought her design into full production, so the patent expired in 1920. Since US patent law no longer protected her product’s propriety, it was only a matter of time until large car manufacturers picked up her design. Cadillac was the first company to adopt the design two years later. Charlotte Bridgwood’s invention was left without much recognition.