Gertrude A. Muller: the Toidey and the first car seats

1887–1954 · THE PATENT RECORD'S WOMAN OF THIS CITY

The work: Gertrude Agnes Muller (9 June 1887 – 13 October 1954) was a Fort Wayne woman whose inventions were not factory floor accidents but a deliberate career. Employed at Van Arnam Manufacturing, makers of wooden toilet seats, and promoted to assistant manager in 1914, she and her sister Margaret Muller Cox developed the child's training seat they called the "Little Toidey" — a folding potty chair that fitted a standard toilet or stood alone on its own basin and frame. Van Arnam would not take it up. In 1924 she founded the Juvenile Wood Products Company in Fort Wayne to make it herself, and remained its president for the rest of her life. What followed was a product line built on patent filings: the Comfy-Safe Auto Seat of 1929, among the first children's car seats, its patent filed 16 August 1928 (Official Gazette, 1 February 1929); the Toidey One-Step of 1931; the firm's renaming as The Toidey Company in 1945 as it moved into plastics. The patent record also shows the firm absorbing other women's patents: U.S. Patent No. 1,879,066 of 27 September 1932, Martha M. Bryant of Chicago's "Shield for boys' toilet seats," was assigned to Juvenile Wood Products, Inc., of Fort Wayne. Muller was recognized in her lifetime by the National Safety Council and the American Medical Association as a pioneer of children's safety products, her company's goods were all manufactured in Fort Wayne, and the firm continued into the late 1970s after her death. In a section where the women's record is thin, hers is the documented exception that proves the search worth making: a woman inventor with a factory, a patent trail, and a national market.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia, "Gertrude Muller" — 1887–1954; the Van Arnam years and 1914 promotion; the Little Toidey developed with Margaret Muller Cox; the 1924 founding; the Comfy-Safe patent filed 16 August 1928 (Official Gazette, 1 February 1929, p. 465); the 1931 and 1945 milestones; the National Safety Council and AMA recognition.
2. The History Center, artifact record 97.24.1 — the Little Toidey training chair, Juvenile Wood Products of Fort Wayne, the fitting/standing design, 1924–1945 labeling.
3. Pioneers Resting in Historic Lindenwood — Muller (1887–1954), "founder of Toidey Company of Fort Wayne, manufacturer of baby toilet seats."
4. U.S. Patent No. 1,879,066 (27 September 1932), the patent itself, via Google Patents — Martha M. Bryant, assignor to Juvenile Wood Products, Inc., Fort Wayne, Indiana.
5. Old Fort News, via Melinda Haines, "Invented in Fort Wayne, Indiana" (2024) — Muller as the safety-product pioneer.