Ellen Eglin

The task of scrubbing clothes by hand on a washboard and then wringing out the water afterwards ignited Eglin's desire to improve the laundry process, which sparked the idea of a new invention.

Although the design was perceived as a popular product well into the 20th century, Eglin received almost no credit or financial success of her own invention.

Eglin said, "You know I am Black and if it was known that a negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer.

"”[1] Eglin's knowledge that racial bias would prevent the clothes-wringer's success caused her to sell the design to an unknown white agent for $18.

Although she wanted to exhibit the new model at the Women's International Industrial Inventors Congress (WIIIC), where, anyone was invented regardless of race, she never patented it.

Ellen Eglin appears to have spent the rest of her life in Washington, D. C. In 1890, she was employed by the United States Department of the Interior as a charwoman in the Census Office[3] She appeared in the local city directories from about 1888 living at 1929 11th Street, N. W. with her brother Charles, a Union Navy veteran who was a teamster.