8 Big Inventions Inspired by Love

The stories behind them will definitely surprise you

Caroline McCaughey,

AARP

Comments

En español

Published July 20, 2023

Daniel Downey

From Greek mythology to romance novels, movies, and viral videos on social media, stories of love capture the imagination.

Love is the “greatest vehicle for change and motivating,” says New York City psychotherapist Gabrielle Kann. “The simplest and the single greatest act a person can do is to love. It’s the reason for being here.”

Love has motivated people across centuries to make the world a better place. In fact, it has served as the inspiration for some of the greatest inventions in history.

From the modern wheelchair to Band-Aids to the word game Wordle, here are the stories of eight inventions created out of love.

Surgical gloves

It’s unthinkable today to imagine a surgeon performing an operation without surgical gloves, but in the 19th century that was the norm. Surprisingly, though, the invention of surgical gloves had less to do with hygiene than it did with love.

In 1889, famed John Hopkins Hospital surgeon William Stewart Halsted invented rubber surgical gloves to court a nurse who suffered from contact dermatitis from the chemicals used in the operating theater. He gave her the gloves as a gift shortly after their wedding.

“On trial these proved to be so satisfactory that additional gloves were ordered,” Halsted recounted in 1913. The added benefit of preventing surgical infections led to their widespread adoption.

Band-Aids

Likewise, Band-Aids, now a common household item, were invented by a husband out of the love he had for his wife.

In 1920, Earle Dickson, a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson, noticed that his wife would frequently get cuts and burns in the kitchen and have nothing to put on them but strips of fabric. Dickinson combined two Johnson & Johnson products — adhesive tape and gauze — to create a bandage his wife could easily apply to these wounds.

In 1921, Johnson & Johnson brought the first adhesive Band-Aid strips to market. The rest is history.

The telephone

Alexander Graham Bell is largely credited with inventing the telephone, but an Italian inventor living on Staten Island actually created the first telephonic device.

In 1849, Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci invented a telephone prototype to connect his basement laboratory with the second-floor bedroom of his home. The motivation: a desire to stay connected with his beloved wife upstairs.

The Woombie baby swaddle

This next invention was a lifesaver for me after the birth of my first child. The Woombie is a cotton and spandex sleep sack that simulates the womb for a newborn, making it easier for a baby to sleep.

The product was created by a nurse, Karen Barski, after she gave birth to her daughter five weeks early and couldn’t get the premature newborn to sleep soundly. One night, her daughter nearly suffocated on a swaddle blanket that had become unwrapped. Desperate to find a safer alternative, Barski sat down at her grandmother’s sewing machine and created the first Woombie.

The Woombie is now on lists of new moms’ must-haves across the internet.

Magnetic shirt buttons

This next invention also hits close to home for me because I have a beloved family member with Parkinson’s disease.

In 2013, Maura Horton invented MagnaReady dress shirts after watching her husband, former college football coach Don Horton, struggle to button his shirts after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

A former children’s clothing designer, Maura created a shirt with powerful, easy-clasp magnets at the front and cuffs and real buttons sewn on top, making it easier for anyone with a disability to dress themselves.

Magnetic buttons have existed for a long time — think of the traditional cowboy shirt with magnetic pearl buttons — but Maura wanted her husband still to be able to wear classic dress shirts with real-looking buttons. Her love-inspired invention is now sold in major retailers.

The foldable wheelchair

Stone inscriptions from Ancient Greece suggest that wheelchairs may have been invented as far back as the 6th century A.D. Early wheelchairs, though, were heavy and difficult to maneuver.

In 1932, an engineer named Harry Jennings sought to fix this, creating the first folding, lightweight wheelchair for his paraplegic friend, Herbert Everest. The love of friendship inspired Jennings to create a better, portable chair that is the model on which the modern wheelchair is based. It included metal rims on the wheels to allow the person in the chair to move himself.

The pair then formed the Everest and Jennings company, which had a monopoly on the wheelchair market for decades.

Dog wheelchairs

Prior to the invention of the canine wheelchair, dogs who lost function in their hind legs were routinely put to sleep. A WWII veteran and veterinarian, Lincoln Parkes, sought to change that.

“Animals, because they can’t walk, should not be put to sleep,” he said. “People fall in love with them. There’s no replacement.”

Parkes fashioned the first canine wheelchair out of metal bars and carriage wheels, and it was a huge success. He founded K-9 Cart Co. in 1961, and now you see dog wheelchairs everywhere.

Wordle

The meteoric rise of Wordle, the five-letter word-guessing game now a key feature of New York Times Games, took its inventor by surprise. It was initially developed by Brooklyn software engineer Josh Wardle for his wife, who loves word games. “I wanted to come up with a game that she would enjoy,” Wardle told the Times.

In October 2021, Wardle put the game up on a no-frills, ad-free website for others to enjoy as well. Four months later, The New York Times acquired the game for a price “in the low seven figures.” So much for the expression, “love don’t pay the bills!”

So if you find yourself with a new idea for a product or service that is inspired by love, pursue it. You never know where love will lead or how many people you will be touched by it.

Share your experience: Have you invented a device in order to help a loved one? Share it with your fellow readers in the comments section below.

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Caroline McCaughey is a regular contributor to the New York Sun, where she writes about politics and cultural issues. A native New Yorker, she now lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with her husband and two sons.