Marie Van Brittan Brown was born on 30 October 1922 in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and spent her career working as a nurse, often on irregular and late-night shifts. Her husband Albert Brown worked as an electronics technician — a combination of professional backgrounds that would prove essential to the invention they developed together.
The couple lived in a neighbourhood with slow police response times and a crime rate that left Brown feeling frequently unsafe at home alone during her husband's own irregular working hours. Rather than simply tolerate the anxiety, she began sketching a system that would let her see and communicate with whoever was at her door without opening it.
Working with her husband's technical expertise, Brown designed a system incorporating a motorised camera that could view through four peepholes at different heights, transmitting the image to a television monitor inside the home, along with a two-way microphone and a remote-controlled mechanism that could unlock the door or trigger an alarm. The couple filed a patent in 1966, granted in 1969 — the first home security system on record, and the direct ancestor of modern video doorbells and closed-circuit security systems used worldwide today.
I wanted to feel safe in my own home.
Marie Van Brittan Brown's invention, born from a practical need for personal safety, quietly became the foundation of an entire home security industry still expanding today.
- 1922Born in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
- 1966Files a patent for the first home security system with her husband Albert.
- 1969The patent is officially granted.
- 1999Dies, having received later recognition for her invention's lasting impact.
- ★ Invented and patented the first home security system, 1966
- ★ Design included motorised peephole cameras, remote viewing panels and two-way communication
- ★ Received an award from the National Scientists Committee for her invention
- ★ Her patent has been cited by numerous later security technology patents