GM’s “Damsels of Design” was one of the first major all-female design teams in US history.

The team, consisting of ten women, was put together in the 1950s, partly to spur innovation, and partly as a PR stunt. Nevertheless, the women created many features we now take for granted: child-proof doors, retractable seat belts, and storage compartments.

Unfortunately, despite their successes, they never quite got their due, as one of the women later related:

“What distressed most of us was that we could never be identified as just designers. We were always ‘la femmes’, or 'the female designers’, … but as designer[s], we designed the same as the men did." 

Read more on the Damsels here