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Montage of photos of 8 women inventors

Top row: Marion O'Brien Donovan, Tara Astigarraga, Madison Maxey, Marilyn Hamilton. Bottom row: Michelle Khine, Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Alexis Lewis, Ellen Ochoa

Charlotte Cramer Sachs stands in an interior doorway. A vase of flowers and paintings on the wall are visible over her left shoulder. Her hair is pulled back tightly into a bun and she wears an abstract print dress comprised of wavy diagonal lines. The photo is black-and-white.

Charlotte Cramer Sachs

March 22, 2021 by Joyce Bedi

Throughout American history, women with diverse backgrounds and interests created inventions that change our lives every day.

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"It’s like opening another window in your life when you become involved in something creative and new.”

Charlotte Cramer Sachs

Charlotte Cramer Sachs (1907–2004) was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1924. Her creative talents extended to art, languages, music—and invention. She received her first patent in 1940 for a combination key and flashlight.

As a single working mother in the 1940s, Sachs experienced firsthand the demands on the growing number of women who worked outside the home. Her line of instant cake and muffin mixes helped save time and ease wartime food shortages. She revealed her delight in inventing in the name of her company—Joy Products. 

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Illustrated cake mix box, with an aqua background and an drawing of a slice of yellow cake with white frosting. Wording on the box includes “Joy Vanilla Cake Mix. Simply add water & bake. Makes 12 cup cakes, loaf cake, or single layer. .Ingredients: Cake flour, sugar, dextrose, vegetable shortening, egg, non-fat dry milk solids, vanillin, lecithin, carotene, baking powder, salt. Made by Cramer Products Co., New York.”

Product box, Joy vanilla cake mix, 1947. Charlotte Cramer Sachs Papers, 1905-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0878-0000026-01. © Smithsonian Institution

archivescenter-sachs-charlotte-cramer-ac0878-0000012-01-750-inline-edit.jpg

Typeset sheet of letter size paper, titled “Joy cake mixes. Take the making out of baking.” Wording includes, “They help fill the national need. Distinguished household economics authorities pronounce this product a ‘natural’ especially in these ‘hour-scant’ days where women are pressed so badly for time, yet must feed the family the best in balanced foods—like Joy mixes.”

Informational sheet, “Joy Cake Mixes—‘Take the Making out of Baking,’” undated. Charlotte Cramer Sachs Papers, 1905-2002, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0878-0000012-01. © Smithsonian Institution


Source for quote above: Roberta Fleming Roesch, “Housewife Finds Time For Two Careers,” King Features Syndicate (KFS), July 3, 1961, from the Charlotte Cramer Sachs papers, Box 1, Folder 3, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian. 

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  • Woman’s Building, 1893 World’s Fair

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