Sarah Little Turnbull was a force in the world of materials science and… Industrial design. It’s safe to say that most people have used something that started its life on their drawing board, but few know its name. She worked with engineered fabrics as a consultant for 3M.
As part of these efforts, she designed a molded bra cup inspired by the shape of an N95 mask. 3M later disputed its role in creating the N95 mask. She also served as a consultant to CorningWare in the development of the clear glass cooktop, early microwave cooking products, storage systems, and many other products.
Listen to podcasts
About supporting scientific journalism
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by Subscribe. By purchasing a subscription, you help ensure a future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
[New to this season of Lost Women of Science? Listen to the most recent episodes on Ruby Payne-Scott, Sallie Pero Mead, Vera Peters, Annie Montague Alexander, Emma Unson Rotor, Mária Telkes, Flemmie Kittrell, Rebecca Lee Crumpler and Eunice Newton Foote.]
The Lost Women of Science is produced for the ear. Where possible, we recommend listening to the audio to get the most accurate representation of what was said.
Episode text
Katie Hafner: I’m Katie Hafner, and this is Lost Women of Science: From Our Inbox, a series of short episodes featuring women in science that came to us from you, the listeners.
In today’s episode, we hear from designer Paula Reis about her mentor: Sarah Little Turnbull. You may not know Sarah’s name, but I bet you’ve heard of one of her inventions. Additionally… While reporting this episode, we discovered that Sarah’s story highlights an issue we often encounter when looking at the history of science…
Producer Joanna Mayer tells us her story.
Joanna Mayer: I want to tell you about this filming I came across recently.
It appears to have been taken sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. Four businessmen standing in a circle. Two of the men are smoking long cigarettes, and the third is wearing a pinstripe suit. And they all look down.
They are looking at a woman. With a killer beehive hairdo, a giant flower pinned to her jacket, and a big, bright smile.
Paula Reese: Sarah Little Turnbull, and she was young.
Joanna Mayer: Sarah was about 4’11” – she was born Sarah Finkelstein, but everyone called her “Little Sarah” and she made the name her own. Sarah started out professionally as…Sarah Little.
I’m Joanna Mayer, and this is from our inbox, the Lost Women of Science series. Today, we’re talking about Sarah Little Turnbull, and the huge legacy she left behind — from pot lids to sneakers to the product many of us became familiar with when the COVID-19 pandemic hit: the N95 mask.
Paula Rees wrote to us about Sarah – Paula is the director of a multi-disciplinary design firm, and Sarah was her mentor.
Paula Reese: I’ve known Sarah for 30 years. I can assure you that something in your life today was either designed or inspired by Sarah Little.
Joanna Mayer: Sarah grew up in Brooklyn in the 1920s in a Russian immigrant family. They were poor, but Sarah managed to find beauty and elegant design in unexpected places, like the artfully arranged vegetables at the grocer. As a teenager, she won a scholarship to Parsons School of Design, where she studied advertising design. After graduating, she worked as a decor editor in a magazine Beautiful housethe popular interior decorating magazine. In the magazine, I promoted ideas that would make us more thoughtful about the way we use space and consume materials. For example, I’ve written articles about the benefits of living with a roommate and organizing small spaces.
Paula Reese: She practiced what she preached in that she lived a very simple life with fewer, but higher quality things to last longer.
Joanna Mayer: Sarah lived in a 400 square foot apartment. She had very few clothes, but she had them custom made to fit her perfectly.
Paula Reese: I really hated planned obsolescence and physical waste of resources. Her belief was that we should serve as the conscience of the companies that employ us. We need to do the right things.
Joanna Mayer: This was Sarah’s guiding philosophy – doing the right thing. In 1958, she decided to present her ideas to companies and started her own design consulting business. With this career leap, Sarah Little Turnbull has become a fixture in the world of applied science and industrial design.
Paula Reese: Sarah had absolute strength and was not at all shy about asking for what she needed.
Joanna Mayer: Basically, she was the type of person who could maintain her position in the business circle. Big companies are starting to take notice. Among them – 3M, a giant that manufactured everything from duct tape to sandpaper to the synthetic rubber used in space boots. In 1958, they hired Sarah. She worked in the gift wrapping and fabric department, but she wasn’t there to wrap gifts. She was there to try out a new material 3M was working on: moldable nonwoven technology.
Paula Reese: Her genius was in materials science.
Joanna Mayer: Although Sarah didn’t have a degree in materials science, she worked with all kinds of materials, especially those made from fibers that were woven together, leaving these very small gaps between the strands. And when she saw this new high-tech fabric, which was made of polymers It melted Together – and then eliminating those small gaps – I knew they were full of potential.
Paula Reese: She had a clear understanding of the science behind the things she was imagining and the things she wanted to design. She always started by asking, “Why?”
Joanna Mayer: In fact, when senior management asked Sarah to give a presentation, this is what she called it: “Why?” In her presentation, Sarah delved into nonwoven technology and all of its many potential uses. She came up with 100 original product ideas, including one whose impact would resonate around the world: the moldable bra cup. Instead of a rigid, uncomfortable shape, the moldable cup fits comfortably around the breast – and with fewer seam lines at that!
But according to Paula, the moldable bra cup would pave the way for another invention – one with far-reaching implications…
Paula Reese: Sarah was very advanced in understanding what was coming. She was more influential and accomplished than people know.
Joanna Mayer: While working with 3M, Sarah was also caring for three sick family members. Her parents and sister were dying at the same time, meaning Sarah died a lot of time in hospitals. She began to notice the masks that the doctors were wearing, which were a flat piece of cloth with a tie at the back.
Perhaps the reason was the boredom of spending long hours in hospital rooms; Perhaps it was a racing brain that could not be tamed; Perhaps it was a project designed to distract herself from her intense grief – we can’t say for sure. But Sarah had an idea. What if she could take the moldable bra she designed… and turn it into a better medical mask?
Joanna Mayer: In 1972, 3M produced a mask…and it looked a lot like a moldable bra cup! 3M would tweak the mask over the next few years, but Sarah’s vision—her product born from a real problem—seems to have paid off.
When the coronavirus pandemic broke out in 2020, the media published countless stories about Sarah’s contribution to mask making, highlighting this amazing woman and her work. It seems that after decades, Sarah is finally getting long-awaited recognition for her life-saving invention.
But here’s where the story gets complicated: 3M doubts that Sarah invented the mask.
We reached out to 3M to ask about this story. According to a company spokesperson, the company had been working on designing a molded, cup-shaped mask made of nonwoven materials since 1957 — a year before Sarah started working with them. In 1959, two 3M scientists filed a patent application covering, but not limited to, “breath-filtering, porous face masks used by surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses, and industrial workers exposed to dusty or polluted environments.”
And in 2022, a company spokesperson as well L said Toronto Star There are notebooks showing that the idea was already in progress before Sarah arrived.
but Paula She says Sarah is missing credit where credit is due, and that 3M is withholding her role in developing the mask.
The story of Sarah and the N-95 mask illustrates a problem we face often in the history of science.
There is often a romantic image of a lone genius who has achieved something great, suddenly conjuring up a new invention from nothing. This is known as the “Great Man Theory” – the idea that extraordinary minds and leaders are born, not made, and that scientific progress is slow and steady, punctuated by giant leaps forward by extraordinary men. In fact, these kinds of “aha!” Rare moments.
More often than not, the invention process is much less dramatic, slower and almost more tedious. Crooked. Most importantly, we have it complete difference Of people to thank for breakthroughs. But the “Great Man Theory” rolls off the tongue much easier than, say, the “Theory of Hard, Cooperative, and Team Effort.”
So, regardless of the truth behind the invention of the N95 mask, Sarah’s story shows us that… science is messy sometimes! Disagreements over ideas, over credit…all par for the course.
But however much Sarah Little Turnbull contributed to the N95, incredibly, the mask was merely a footnote in her long career.
Paula Reese: Her work was very diverse. For example, it was interested in developing new foods such as soy-based alternatives. She was instrumental in the development of the clear glass fireplace. She was on the team that worked on the early microwave. She loved the storage system. It’s very organized. Therefore, it has developed many products related to storage.
Joanna Mayer: After a career lasting more than 70 years, Sarah died in 2015 at the age of 97. Paula Reis was part of a group of friends who cared for Sarah in her old age.
Going back to that photo I described earlier – the one with Sarah in the middle of a group of men – I wonder how many other women like her are out there.
Paula Reese: She came to believe that she was too smart to be fully acknowledged by the mad men of mid-century. While conducting this research, I connected with other women who found the same to be true of their mentors. And yes, it’s frustrating.
Sarah’s legacy and mission has been to help the public understand design and realize that we have the power to make things through scientific discoveries and amazing technology. But we also have an obligation to make things just because we can.
Katie Hafner: Thanks to Paula Rees for writing for us about Sarah Little Turnbull. This episode of Missing Women of Science: From Our Inbox was produced by Joanna Mayer and engineered by Hans Hsu. Fact checking by Lexi Attia. Our executive producers are Amy Scharf and me, Katie Hafner. Lizzie Younan composes our music. We receive our funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Anne Wojcicki Foundation. We are distributed by PRX and our publishing partner is Scientific American.
Here at Lost Women of Science, our goal is to rescue female scientists from the jaws of mystery, but we need your help! If you know a scientist lost to history, let us know! You can go to our website to send us an email, we are Lostwomenofscience.org. You will also find the phone number for our information line. We love getting calls to the tip line.
Thanks for listening!
Episode guests
Paula Reese
Hosts
Joanna Mayer
project
Joanna Mayer
Further reading:
Abdel Fattah, Rand, and Rumtin Arabloui. “How a woman inspired the design of an N95 mask.”NPRNPR, May 21, 2020, Reese, Paula, and Larry Eisenbach.
“Ask why.”Design MuseumApril 6, 2020.
“About Sarah Little Turnbull.” Design Institute Center.
Corbett, Kelly. True story: A former Beauty House editor was inspired by an N95 mask while designing bras.