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Marion Donovan

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Inventor

The Resume

    (October 15, 1917-November 4, 1998)
    Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana
    Birth name was Marion O’Brien
    Developed the boater, a waterproof diaper cover (1949)
    Designed the first disposable diaper (1951)
    Held four patents related to diapers, sixteen related to other inventions
    Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2015)

Why she might be annoying:

    She divorced her first husband.
    She was unable to convince manufacturers to make either the boater or the disposable diaper.
    Disposable diapers add 3.4 million tons of waste to landfills each year.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She resembled Rosalind Russell.
    After she earned a degree in architecture from Yale, she designed her own house.
    She said one question guided her inventing: ‘What do I think will help a lot of people and most certainly will help me?’
    Unlike existing rubber pants, her boaters did not cause chafing and diaper rash.
    When she was unable to find an existing company willing to market her boaters, she began manufacturing them herself and selling them at Saks Fifth Avenue.
    The president of Saks wrote to her, ‘It is not often that a new innovation in the infants’ wear field goes over with the immediate success of your boaters.’
    When Proctor and Gamble began marketing Pampers in 1961, they bore an uncanny resemblance to her design of a decade earlier.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 19 Votes: 52.63% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying