隱於市井之間的冷知識 誰發明了雨刷
In the winter of 1902, an Alabama woman named Mary Anderson visited New York and was appalled by how the weather slowed down streetcars. Snow and sleet obscured the trolleys’ two-paneled windshields, forcing drivers to open both panes and peer through the gap between them. In her notebook, Anderson sketched out a solution: a squeegee wiper on the outside of the windshield, connected to a lever on the inside.
1902年冬天，阿拉巴馬州的一個名叫瑪麗·安德森(Mary Anderson)的女人來紐約旅行，糟糕的天氣令行車如此緩慢，她感到大爲震驚。雪和冷雨模糊了有軌電車的兩塊擋風玻璃，司機們只好打開玻璃，透過兩塊玻璃之間的缺口向前張望。安德森在筆記本上畫了一個解決方案：在擋風玻璃外面裝一個橡膠刮水器，與車裏的一個槓桿相連。
Anderson patented her invention the following year, but so few people owned automobiles that it attracted little interest. Motorcars were open-air in those days, and windshields were an optional accessory. “The reaction to rain on the windscreen was just to take off the windscreen,” explains Leslie Kendall, curator at the Petersen Automotive Museum. By the time Henry Ford’s Model T took motoring into the mainstream a decade later, Anderson’s “window cleaning device” had been forgotten.
次年，安德森爲自己的發明申請了專利，但那時候很少人有汽車，所以她的發明沒引起人們的興趣。那時候的汽車是敞篷的，擋風玻璃只是個可選的配件。“下雨時，人們就把擋風玻璃取掉，”彼得森汽車博物館(Petersen Automotive Museum)的策展人萊斯利·肯德爾(Leslie Kendall)解釋說。十年後，當亨利·福特(Henry Ford)的T型車讓汽車成爲主流時，安德森的“窗戶清潔裝置”已經被遺忘了。Unto the breach stepped John Oishei, an aspiring playwright who operated a vaudeville theater in Buffalo. While driving his National Roadster on a rainy night in 1916, Oishei hit a cyclist, a “harrowing experience,” he later said, “that imprinted on my mind the definite need for maintaining vision while driving in the rain.” (The cyclist was uninjured.)
後來約翰·奧森(John Oishei)又進行了嘗試。他是一位有抱負的編劇，在水牛城經營一個輕歌舞劇院。1916年的一個雨夜，他開着國家跑車(National Roadster)撞上了一個騎自行車的人（那個人沒有受傷）。他後來說，“那個經歷太可怕了，讓我深深覺得在雨中開車一定要有清晰的視野。”
By then, others had come up with windshield-clearing devices similar to Anderson’s, but none were in wide distribution. Oishei found a locally made, hand-operated wiper called the Rain Rubber, which slid along the gap between the upper and lower panels of the split windscreens that were then in use. He then founded a company to market it. The device required a certain amount of dexterity — drivers had to operate it with one hand while shifting and steering with the other — but it quickly became standard equipment on American motorcars.
那時候，其他人也想出了與安德森的設計相似的擋風玻璃清潔裝置，但都沒有流行開來。奧森找到當地生產的一個手動操作的刮水器，名叫雨膠(Rain Rubber)，當時使用的擋風玻璃分爲上下兩部分，雨膠沿着兩塊玻璃之間的缺口滑動。然後他成立了一個公司推廣它。這個設備需要司機身手敏捷——一隻手操縱它，另一隻手控制方向盤——但它很快成爲美國汽車的標準裝備。Oishei’s company, which was eventually called Trico, soon dominated the windshield-wiper market. While not an inventor himself, Oishei was relentless in his pursuit of patents, purchasing whatever technology he couldn’t develop in-house or litigate out of existence. After William M. Folberth patented a vacuum-powered windshield wiper that ran on suction from the engine’s intake manifold, for example, Trico spent three years battling him in court before buying his company in 1925 for $1 million. A later patent war, between Trico and rival windshield-wiper company Anco, stretched from the mid-1940s until 1971, making it one of the longest-running lawsuits of its day.
奧森的公司最終命名爲特瑞科(Trico)，很快主導了雨刷器市場。雖然奧森本人不是發明家，但他堅持不懈地追求專利，購買自己公司不能開發的所有技術或者爲了生存提起訴訟。例如，在威廉·M·弗爾伯思(William M. Folberth)爲真空動力雨刷器（它以引擎進氣管的吸力爲動力）申請專利後，特瑞科花了三年時間與他在法庭上較量，直到1925年以100萬美元買下了他的公司。後來，特瑞科和競爭對手安科雨刷器公司(Anco)之間的專利爭奪戰從20世紀40年代中期持續到1971年，成爲當時持續時間最長的訴訟之一。Over time, windshield wipers have been re-engineered again and again, in response both to changing windshield designs and to automakers’ desire for enticing new add-ons. But the basic concept remains true to what Anderson sketched aboard that New York trolley in 1902: a squeegee that wipes water from the glass. As one early windshield-wiper advertisement explained: “A Clear Sight Ahead Prevents Accidents. An Undimmed Vision Makes It Easier to Drive.”
經過這麼多年，雨刷器被再三改造，以應對擋風玻璃設計的變化以及汽車製造商對迷人新配件的渴望。但是基本的概念仍是1902年安德森在紐約電車上畫的草圖：一個從玻璃上刮水的橡膠清潔器。就像早期的一個雨刷器廣告所說的那樣：“清晰的視野能預防事故，讓駕駛更輕鬆。”Number of windshield-wiper-related patents issued per decade.
每十年與雨刷器相關的專利個數：1920s: 430
20世紀20年代：430個1940s: 260
20世紀40年代：260個1960: 650
20世紀60年代：650個1980: 410
20世紀80年代：410個2000s: 660
21世紀前十年：660個2010 to present day: 390
2010年至今：390個
