The windshield wiper was invented by Mary Elizabeth Anderson. She was granted the first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device, called the windshield wiper, on November 10, 1903. Anderson got the idea during a trip to New York City in winter when she observed a trolley driver struggling to see through the snow-covered windshield. Her invention involved a lever inside the vehicle controlling a spring-loaded arm with a rubber blade to clear the windshield from the inside, improving the driver's visibility without stopping or opening the window.

Other early inventors contributed to the development of windshield wipers, including George J. Capewell, who filed a patent for a window cleaner for vehicles in 1896, and John W. Jepson, who patented a wind-shield cleaner in 1916, but Mary Anderson is widely credited as the original inventor of the modern windshield wiper.