Missouri’s Famous Inventions

Annie Turnbo Malone became one of the first black female millionaires in the country thanks to her haircare products for black women. She developed the chemistry for the items in St. Louis while also starting the Poro Colleges for cosmetology in 1918.

Zhi Xu from the University of Missouri-St. Louis was named the Inventor of the Year in 2014 for his noninvasive blood glucose monitor. For years, scientists had tried to come up with a less painful way to detect glucose levels. But it wasn’t until the team in Missouri came up with a infrared monitor that detected glucose levels of the finger with no need to draw blood.

The social media platform Twitter was invented by St. Louisan Jack Dorsey. He also came up with Square payment processing systems.

Deep in the Ozark Mountains, Kewpie Dolls live. Rose O’Neill worked as an artist and illustrator and became one of the most successful of all time. In the course of her work, she came up with a Kewpie, which became some of the best selling dolls of all time. Later in life she settled near Branson, which is where her Kewpie’s are still memorialized.

The child’s meals at McDonalds were the brainchild of Bob Bernstein of Kansas City in 1977. He was an advertising executive who came up with an idea to keep kids happy while dining with their parents.

Almon Strowger of Kansas City came up with the idea of the automatic telephone switcher to save his mortuary business. He discovered that the wife of a business rival was routing calls to the competition at the phone switchboard. So he devised a switching system that routed calls directly to where they were supposed to go.

Most people likely don’t realize how often they rely on a product invented by Missourian Robert Banks. He was raised in Piedmont and went to the University of Missouri-Rolla. While at Phillips Petroleum, he invented high-density polyethelene (HDPE). That product is now a cornerstone of many of the products we use everyday including milk jugs, laundry baskets, artificial turf, and pipes.

The Compound Bow was invented by Holless Allen in North Kansas City in 1969. He later set up shop in Billings where he established Allen Archery.

The one inventor from Missouri who had more impact than any other is George Washington Carver. It’s impossible to point to one product he invented because he is responsible for about 450. He developed plastics, synthetic rubber, adhesives, axle grease, bleach, chili sauce, creosote, dyes, flour, instant coffee, shoe polish, shaving cream, vanishing cream, wood stains and fillers, insulating board, linoleum, meat tenderizer, metal polish, milk flakes, soil conditioner and Worcestershire sauce all from peanuts and sweet potatoes.