Sara Little Turnbull was a drive on the earth of supplies science and industrial design. It’s secure to say most individuals have used one thing that began life on her drafting board, however few know her identify. She labored with engineered materials as a advisor for 3M.
As a part of these efforts she designed a molded bra cup that impressed the type of the N95 masks. Later 3M disputed her position in arising with the N95 masks. She additionally labored as a advisor for CorningWare on clear-glass cooktop improvement, early microwave cooking merchandise, storage programs and lots of different merchandise.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
On supporting science journalism
Should you’re having fun with this text, think about supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By buying a subscription you’re serving to to make sure the way forward for impactful tales concerning the discoveries and concepts shaping our world at present.
[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.]
Misplaced Ladies of Science is produced for the ear. The place attainable, we suggest listening to the audio for essentially the most correct illustration of what was mentioned.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Katie Hafner: I am Katie Hafner, and that is Misplaced Ladies of Science: From Our Inbox, a sequence of mini episodes that includes ladies in science that got here to us from you, our listeners.
On at present’s episode, we hear from designer, Paula Rees, about her mentor: Sara Little Turnbull. You may not know Sara’s identify, however I’d guess that you simply’ve heard of one in all her innovations. Plus… within the technique of reporting this episode, we found that Sara’s story illuminates a problem that we encounter quite a bit when science historical past…
Producer Johanna Mayer brings us her story.
Johanna Mayer: I wish to inform you about this {photograph} I got here throughout lately.
It seems to be prefer it was taken someday within the Nineteen Fifties or Sixties. 4 enterprise individuals are standing in a circle. Two of the boys are smoking lengthy cigarettes, a 3rd is in a pinstripe go well with. And so they’re all wanting down.
They’re a lady. With a killer beehive hairdo, a large flower pinned to her sweater, and a giant beaming grin.
Paula Rees:  Sara Little Turnbull, and she or he was little.
Johanna Mayer: Sara was about 4’11” – she was born Sara Finkelstein, however everybody referred to as her “Little Sara” and she or he made the identify her personal. Sara started to go professionally by the identify… Sara Little.
I’m Johanna Mayer, and that is From Our Inbox, a sequence from Misplaced Ladies of Science. At the moment, we’re speaking about Sara Little Turnbull, and the large legacy she left behind – from pot lids to sneakers to a product that many people turned all too acquainted with when the Covid-19 pandemic hit: the N95 masks.
Paula Rees wrote to us about Sara – Paula is the principal of an interdisciplinary design agency, and Sara was her mentor.
Paula Rees: I knew Sara for 30 years. I can guarantee you that one thing in your life at present was both designed or impressed by Sara Little.
Johanna Mayer: Sara grew up in Brooklyn within the Nineteen Twenties, in a Russian immigrant household. They have been poor, however Sara managed to search out magnificence and chic design in surprising locations, like artfully organized greens on the grocer. As an adolescent, she received a scholarship to Parsons Faculty of Design, the place she studied promoting design. And after graduating, she labored as decor editor of Home Lovely, a well-liked inside adorning journal. On the journal, she promoted concepts that may make us extra considerate about the way in which we use area and eat supplies. For instance, she wrote articles about the advantages of dwelling with a roommate, and organizing small areas.
Paula Rees: She would observe what she preached in that she led a quite simple life with fewer issues, however of higher high quality to last more.
Johanna Mayer: Sara lived in a 400-square-foot residence. She had only a few garments however had them custom-made to suit her completely.
Paula Rees: She actually abhorred deliberate obsolescence and materials waste of sources. Her perception was that we must always function the conscience of the businesses that rent us. We have to do the appropriate issues.
Johanna Mayer: This was Sara’s guiding philosophy – doing the appropriate factor. And in 1958, she determined to convey her concepts to firms, and began her personal design consulting enterprise. And with that profession leap, Sara Little Turnbull turned a key fixture on the earth of utilized science and industrial design.
Paula Rees: Sara was an absolute powerhouse and in no way shy about asking for what she wanted.
Johanna Mayer: Mainly, she was the form of girl who might maintain her personal in a circle of businessmen. Huge firms started to take discover. Amongst them – 3M, a large firm that has manufactured all the things from masking tape to sandpaper to an artificial rubber utilized in area boots. In 1958, they employed Sara. She labored within the Reward Wrap & Material Division, however she wasn’t there to wrap presents. She was there to experiment with a brand new materials 3M was working with: a moldable, non-woven expertise.
Paula Rees: Her genius was in materials science.
Johanna Mayer: Though Sara didn’t have a level in materials science, she’d labored with every kind of supplies, primarily ones that have been constituted of fibers that have been woven collectively, which left these teeny tiny gaps between the threads. And when she noticed this new high-tech cloth, which was constituted of polymers that have been melted collectively – due to this fact eliminating these tiny gaps – she knew it was filled with potential.
Paula Rees: She had a transparent understanding of the science behind the issues that she was imagining and the issues that she needed to design. And she or he all the time began with the query ‘why?’
Johanna Mayer: The truth is, when senior administration requested Sara to present a presentation, that’s what she referred to as it: “Why?” Within the presentation, Sara dug into that non-woven expertise and all its many potential makes use of. She got here up with 100 authentic product concepts, together with one whose results would resound throughout the globe: the moldable bra cup. As a substitute of an excessively inflexible and uncomfortable form, the moldable cup match snugly to the breast–and with fewer seam strains at that!
However in accordance with Paula, that moldable bra cup would pave the way in which for one more invention – one with a lot farther-reaching results…
Paula Rees: Sara was approach forward of understanding what was coming. She was a lot extra influential and completed than folks know.
Johanna Mayer: Whereas she was working with 3M, Sara was additionally caring for three sick relations. Each her mother and father and her sister have been dying, all on the similar time, which meant that Sara spent quite a bit of time in hospitals. And she or he started to note the masks the docs have been sporting – a flat piece of material, with a tie within the again.
Perhaps it was the boredom of lengthy hours spent in hospital rooms; perhaps it was a racing mind that couldn’t be tamed; perhaps it was a challenge designed to distract herself from her personal intense grief – we will’t say for certain. However Sara had an thought. What if she might take that moldable bra that she’d designed… and switch it into a greater medical masks?
Johanna Mayer: In 1972, 3M produced a masks… and it regarded an entire lot like a moldable bra cup! 3M would tweak the masks over the following few years, however it appeared that Sara’s imaginative and prescient–her product born of a real-life drawback–had come to fruition.
When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, information shops revealed numerous tales about Sara’s contribution to the masks, spotlighting this unimaginable girl and her work. It appeared that, many years later, Sara was lastly getting long-delayed recognition for her life-saving invention.
However right here is the place the story will get difficult: 3M disputes that Sara invented the masks.
We reached out to 3M to ask about this story. And in accordance with a spokesperson, the corporate was engaged on a design for a molded, cup-shaped masks constituted of non-woven supplies as early as 1957 – a 12 months earlier than Sara started working with them. And in 1959, two scientists at 3M filed a patent utility that included, quote, “porous breath-filtering face masks utilized by surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses, and by industrial staff subjected to dusty or contaminated atmospheres.”
In 2022, a spokesperson from the corporate additionally instructed the Toronto Star that there are notebooks that present that the concept was already churning earlier than Sara arrived.
However Paula says that Sara is lacking credit score the place credit score is due, and that 3M is obscuring her position within the improvement of the masks.
The story of Sara and the N-95 masks illustrates a problem that we encounter quite a bit in science historical past.
There’s typically a romantic picture of a lone genius who has a breakthrough, and all of a sudden conjures a contemporary invention out of skinny air. This is named the “Nice Man Principle” – the concept extraordinary minds and leaders are born, not made, and that scientific progress is gradual and regular, punctuated by large leaps ahead by distinctive males. In actuality, these sorts of “aha!” moments are uncommon.
Extra typically, the method of invention is quite a bit much less dramatic–slower, boring virtually. Convoluted. And, crucially, we often have total groups of individuals to thank for breakthroughs. However “Nice Man Principle” rolls off the tongue an entire lot simpler than, say, “Hardworking-and-Collaborative-Crew-Effort Principle.”
So, whatever the fact behind the invention of the N95 masks, Sara’s story reveals us that… science is messy typically! Disputes over concepts, over credit score… it’s all par for the course.
However regardless of the extent of Sara Little Turnbull’s contribution to the N95, extremely, the masks was only a footnote in her lengthy profession.
Paula Rees: Her work was so extremely numerous. As an example, she was concerned about creating new foodstuffs like soy-based options. She was instrumental within the clear glass cooktop improvement. She was on the staff that labored on the early microwave. And she or he liked storage system. She’s very, very organized. And so she developed lots of merchandise round storage.
Johanna Mayer: After a profession of greater than 70 years, Sara died in 2015, at age 97. Paula Rees was a part of a gaggle of mates who cared for Sara in her outdated age.
Pondering again to that photograph I described earlier – the one with Sara on the middle of the group of males – I’m wondering what number of different ladies like her are on the market.
Paula Rees: I’ve come to imagine she was a lot too sensible to have been acknowledged totally by the Mad Males of the mid-century. In doing this analysis, I’ve linked with different ladies who’ve discovered the identical was true of their mentors. And yeah, it is irritating.
Sara’s legacy and her mission was to assist the general public perceive design and to comprehend we had the power to make issues via fantastic scientific discoveries and expertise. However we even have an obligation to make issues simply because we will.
Katie Hafner: Because of Paula Rees for writing to us about Sara Little Turnbull. This episode of Misplaced Ladies of Science: From Our Inbox was produced by Johanna Mayer and engineered by Hans Hsu. Reality-checking by Lexi Atiya. Our govt producers are Amy Scharf and myself, Katie Hafner. Lizzy Younan composes our music. We get our funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Basis and the Anne Wojcicki Basis. PRX distributes us and our publishing companion is Scientific American.
Right here at Misplaced Ladies of Science, it’s our purpose to rescue feminine scientists from the jaws of obscurity, however we want your assist! If you already know of a feminine scientist who’s been misplaced to historical past, tell us! You possibly can go to our web site to ship us an e-mail, We’re lostwomenofscience.org. You will additionally discover the telephone quantity to our tip line. We love getting calls to the tip line.
Thanks for listening!
Episode Friends
Paula Rees
Host
Johanna Mayer
Producer
Johanna Mayer
Additional studying:
Abdelfatah, Rund, and Ramtin Arablouei. “How One Lady Impressed the Design for the N95 Masks.”NPR, NPR, 21 Might 2020, Rees, Paula, and Larry Eisenbach.
“Ask Why.”Design Museum, 6 Apr. 2020.
“About Sara Little Turnbull.” CENTER FOR DESIGN INSTITUTE.
Corbett, Kelly. True Story: A Former Home Lovely Editor Impressed the N95 Masks Whereas Designing Bras.
