Abstract

This essay compares the public memory narratives surrounding two key players in the invention of one important mid-twentieth century innovation: the disposable diaper. Although Procter and Gamble’s Victor Mills and the entrepreneurial inventor Marion Donovan have each been hailed as success stories in the history of invention, their stories have often been framed differently in popular media, such as website blurbs, newspaper articles, and obituaries. The essay considers how four gendered tropes surrounding the act of invention—space, motive, training and preparation, and scope—contribute to this differential remembering and, relatedly, to a tacit demarcation between high-status masculine invention and its amateur counterpart, feminine ingenuity.