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Picturing Women Inventors

03/25/2025
profile-icon John Barnett
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Inventor Marilyn Hamilton using a lightweight wheelchair to play tennis

The USC Upstate Library is pleased to present “Picturing Women Inventors,” a poster exhibit that explores the inventions of 19 highly accomplished American women. This poster exhibit will be on view through March and April in the library's cafe and study room area on the 1st floor. 

“Picturing Women Inventors” is distributed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The exhibit is sponsored by Lyda Hill Philanthropies IF/THEN Initiative and Ericsson.

About the exhibit

Throughout American history, women with diverse backgrounds and interests created inventions that changed lives every day. But women haven’t always had equal opportunities to be inventors or received as much recognition.

“Picturing Women Inventors” showcases the breakthroughs, motivations, and challenges women encountered while pursuing their goals as inventors. The poster exhibit highlights stories of inventors like Marilyn Hamilton (see picture), who after a hang-gliding accident in 1978 left her paralyzed, invented a lightweight wheelchair that was easy to maneuver. Diversity of background and age are showcased including inventor Alexis Lewis, who at 12-years-old in 2011 was inspired to adapt a traditional Native American sled, called a travois, by adding wheels to create a simpler way to transport families and their belongings in Somalia.

Inventors featured include astronauts, computer pioneers, businesswomen, athletes, engineers, and students, among others.

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Image of US Representative and American civil rights leader John Lewis with the words "good trouble" appearing in the upper left of the posterNow on view in the library's gallery café (1st floor) is the exhibit, Good Trouble, which highlights some of the historical and contemporary defenders of civil, human, animal, and environmental rights, in the United States and around the world.

The exhibit is centered around the phrase, "Good trouble, necessary trouble,' coined by late U.S. Representative and beloved American civil rights leader, John Lewis, who once stated that engaging in "good trouble, necessary trouble" was important to achieve change.

Featured in the exhibit are a range of colorful poster portraits of these leaders, including the following:

  • Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and civil rights advocate
  • Judith Heumann, lifelong American disability rights activist
  • Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance
  • Shirley Chisholm, American politician and economic, civil, and women's rights activist, who was the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black candidate for a major party nomination for President of the United States
  • Nelson Mandela, South African anti-Apartheid activist, political prisoner, politician, and statesman
  • Greta Thunberg, Swedish environmental activist
  • Harvey Milk, American politician and Gay rights activist, who in 1977 became the first openly Gay man elected to public office in California
  • Autumn Peltier, Anishinaabe Indigenous rights advocate and water conservationist from Canada

These poster portraits were created by Mr. Johnson Paints, an artist, educator, and online retailer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They will be on view in the library through Fall 2024.

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On Thursday, February 2, representatives from the Spartanburg County Public Library (SCPL) will visit the USC Upstate Library to offer free library cards to county residents and "college cards" to Upstate students who reside outside of Spartanburg County. 

Be sure to stop by PerkUp, the Upstate Library's café/coffee shop, between 10 am and 2 pm to get your card. Spartanburg County Public Library staff will also share information about all the free resources and services that SCPL has to offer. These include the digital archive of the Spartanburg Herald Journal and downloadables such as Overdrive e-books and audiobooks, Kanopy streaming movies, and Freegal streaming music.

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