Marion Donovan

Marion O'Brien Donovan (born October 15, 1917 - November 4, 1998) was an American inventor and entrepreneur. She developed the first waterproof disposable diaper. Donovan was born in 1917 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her father, also an inventor, developed and ran the South Bend Lathe Works manufacturing plant along with her uncle in South Bend, Indiana. Her father and uncle had invented an industrial lathe that was used to grind both "automobile gears and gun barrels." After World War II, unhappy with the thankless and repetitive task of changing her daughter's cloth diapers, along with the mess the soiled diaper made to the surrounding bedsheets and her daughter's clothing, she came up with a possible solution. With the use of a sewing...