Celebrating Alice Parker – HVAC Pioneer
By
David Tuft
For Women’s History Month, we want to lift up the story of HVAC Pioneer Alice H. Parker. She received a patent for a central heating gas furnace that she invented more than 100 years ago. Like our own founder Dr. Jane Melia, Alice struggled to keep her home warm and healthy and knew there was a better way (by the standards of the day). So she designed a zoned gas system to replace the wood and coal-burning stoves that dominated indoor heating at the time.
Few details about Alice Parker’s life outside her patent are known–not even a photo (here's a good backgrounder on how that can be so). But at a time when women–especially Black women–couldn't vote, much less advance in careers of their choosing, Alice persevered and was awarded a patent for her revolutionary design on Dec 23, 1919. We celebrate Alice and all women like her who use their lived experiences to change the world despite incredible odds.
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