One day in the 20th century, a woman named Mary Anderson traveled to New York. At that time, New York did not have as many cars as it does now, and cars were not yet popular. As she rode the streetcars through New York City, she noticed that all the streetcar drivers had to get off the train to clean the snow and rain from their windshields every once in a while. After Anderson returned home, she attached a brush to a pole and attached it to the inside of the vehicle. When the driver needed to clean the windshield, he only had to pull the handle to clean it. Anderson received her patent in 1903. Just ten years later, the number of cars in the United States increased dramatically, and every car had the windshield wiper invented by Anderson.