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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

Mária Telkes seated at a desk

Mária Telkes

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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“Each new house is another experimental stepping stone toward the use of the sun as a fuel resource.”

Mária Telkes

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Cover of Popular Science magazine with drawing of solar house

The solar heating system designed by Mária Telkes was featured on the cover of Popular Science, March 1949. Courtesy of Google Books

Born in Hungary, Mária Telkes (1900–1995) immigrated to the United States in 1925 after completing her PhD in physical chemistry. She was nicknamed the “Sun Queen” for her work on solar energy, inventing solar stoves and a solar-powered distiller to desalinate sea water. In the 1940s, she worked with architect Eleanor Raymond on a solar-heated house. Photovoltaic panels were still experimental, so the house was built with large windows backed with black metal sheets. Sunlight heated the sheets and fans circulated the warmed air around bins filled with a chemical salt. The salt melted and stored heat until the temperature around the bins cooled. Then the salt recrystallized, slowly releasing the absorbed heat.

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Telkes and architect Raymond looking at plans outside solar house

Mária Telkes (left) with architect Eleanor Raymond outside MIT Solar House in Dover, Massachusetts, 1949. Courtesy of MIT Museum

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Exterior of solar house

MIT Solar House in Dover, Massachusetts, designed by Mária Telkes, 1949. Courtesy of MIT Museum


Source for quote above: Quoted in “The House of the Day After Tomorrow,” MIT Technology Review, https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/06/22/202508/the-house-of-the-day-after-tomorrow/.

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