July 30, 2025 • 40 mins
Beatrice Kenner’s inventions were focused largely on making life easier and less annoying for herself and the people around her, including period products. Mildred Smith’s invention was about family, and it grew from her disability after she developed multiple sclerosis.
Research:
- “Deaths.” Evening Star. 11/27/1956. https://www.newspapers.com/image/869672410/
- “Mildred E. Smith.” Obituary. Washington Post. 8/19/1993. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1993/08/19/n-hugh-mcdiarmid-dies-at-86/beab0fdf-9aec-4ac1-bd0a-cfcef223f1fa/
- Byram, W.F. and R.P. Phronebarger. “Current Supply System for Electric Railways.” U.S. Patent 1,134,871. 4/6/1915.
- Coren, Ashleigh, et al. “The Many Inventions of Beatrice Kenner.” Side Door. Smithsonian Institution. 4/6/2022. https://www.si.edu/sidedoor/many-inventions-beatrice-kenner
- Davidson, S.N. “Pants Presser.” U.S. Patent 1,088,329.
- Hambrick, Arlene. “Biographies of Black Female Scientists and Inventors: An Interdisciplinary Middle School Curriculum Guide. ‘What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?’” Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts. Doctor of Education Dissertation. 1993. DOI: 10.7275/14756666
- Hodal, Kate. “Cloth, cow dung, cups: how the world's women manage their periods.” The Guardian. 3/14/2019. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/13/cloth-cow-dung-cups-how-the-worlds-women-manage-their-periods
- Jeffrey, Laura S. “Amazing American Inventors of the 20th Century.” Enslow Publishers, Inc.. 1996, 2013.
- Kenner, Mary Beatrice. “Busch Traffic.” Daily Press. 11/12/1984. https://www.newspapers.com/image/234268212/
- Kijowska, Wiktoria. “Sanitary suspenders to Mooncups: a brief history of menstrual products.” Victoria and Albert Museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/a-brief-history-of-menstrual-products
- King, Helen. “From rags and pads to the sanitary apron: a brief history of period products.” The Conversation. 4/25/2023. https://theconversation.com/from-rags-and-pads-to-the-sanitary-apron-a-brief-history-of-period-products-203451
- O’Sullivan, Joan. “Disease Victim Creates Game.” The Orange Leader. 10/8/1982. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1008083420/
- Ravey, Julia and Dr. Ella Hubber. “Unstoppable: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner.” Unstoppable. BBC. 6/17/2024. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5rmq
- Sluby, Patricia Carter. “African American Brilliance.” Tar heel junior historian [2006 : fall, v.46 : no.1]. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/tar-heel-junior-historian-2006-fall-v.46-no.1/3700440?item=5369779
- Smith, Mildred E. “Family Relationships Card Game.” U.S. Patent 4,230,321. 10/28/1980. https://ppubs.uspto.gov/api/pdf/downloadPdf/4230321
- Tsjeng, Zing. “Forgotten Women: The Scientists.” Cassell Illustrated. 2018.
- Tsjeng, Zing. “The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor Who Revolutionized Menstrual Pads.” Vice. 3/8/2018. https://www.vice.com/en/article/mary-beatrice-davidson-kenner-sanitary-belt/
- Washington Afro American. “Jabbo Kenner Leads Boys to Clean Life.” 11/15/1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1042304374/
- Washington Daily News. “Mrs. Kenner Is In Clover.” 6/2/1958. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1042178951/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
and I'm Holly Frye. Holly, you've been on kind of
an inventor kick lately, I have, and I'm joining you now.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome, Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In today's episode is actually on two sisters, Mary Beatrice
Davidson Kenner and Mildred Ethel Davidson Austin Smith. Beatrice's inventions
were focused largely on making life easier and less annoying
for herself and the people around her, including inventions related
(00:45):
to something I personally find pretty annoying, which is our periods. Uh.
Mildred's invention was more about family, and that invention grew
from her disability after she developed multiple sclerosis. This is
one of those subjects where there are just little bits
of misinformation and inaccuracies that have become incredibly widespread and
(01:07):
are now kind of taken as fact because different writers
have all been sourcing the same work and also sourcing
each other. So I've tried to sort out as much
of that as possible, but there are definitely still some gaps. Also,
there is a photo that is purportedly of Beatrice as
a young woman, that is just all over the place,
(01:29):
including as of when we recorded this, things like the
Wikipedia article about her. I'm ninety nine percent sure that
photo is really of Mildred. There's not really as much
recent writing about Mildred, but the photo that is sometimes
used for her is again I'm like ninety nine percent
sure that's really of Beatrice. And the reason that I
(01:52):
think this is that there are also some publicly available
photos of each of them from later on in their lives,
like one of b Beatrice that was included alongside an obituary,
and one of Mildred that was in a nineteen eighty
two article about her. That photo of the older Mildred
looks more like the photo that's usually used on articles
(02:12):
about Beatrice, and then the photo of older Beatrice looks
more like the one that is sometimes used for Mildred.
I also found a photo in newspaper coverage of Mildred's
career as a singer in the thirties that very strongly
resembles that photo that's usually used for Beatrice today. That's
just a thing to be aware of if you go
(02:34):
google these women and see the photos that are being used.
I will talk about the odd giggle this whole thing
gave me in behind the scenes on Friday, Okay. Mildred
and Beatrice came from a family of inventors. Their maternal grandfather,
Robert Pink Fronbarger, worked for a railroad company. In nineteen fifteen,
(02:54):
he and William Floyd Byrome were issued US Patent one
one three four eight seven one for a current supply
system for electrical railways. According to interviews that Beatrice and
Mildred gave later on in their lives, their grandfather also
invented a tricolor signaling system for trains, but he didn't
get the patent on that one. Fronberger was black, and
(03:17):
he demonstrated his invention to some white railroad men before
he had applied for a patent on it. They stole
that design from him, and because of the entrench systems
of racism that he was living and working in, there
really wasn't anything he could do about it. Mildred and
Beatrice's father, Sidney Nathaniel Davidson, was a Baptist minister, and
(03:39):
several of his brothers were ministers as well. Sydney had
a close pressing business and also owned a funeral home,
and he invented things that were related to both of
those professions. In nineteen fourteen, he was awarded a patent
on a close presser that could fit in a person's luggage,
as described in US Past at one zero eight eight
(04:01):
three two nine quote. The object of this invention resides
in the provision of a trouser's creasing device, wherein trousers
may be disposed in a flattened position to be pressed
and creased. This device had multiple hinged leaves with rounded ends,
so that the parts of the pants that were supposed
(04:22):
to be creased stayed creased, but the presser did not
make unwanted creases where the legs of the pants needed
to be folded to fit in the luggage. Beatrice and
Mildred later gave interviews in which they talked about what
happened with this invention. Apparently a company in New York
was interested in bringing it to market, but, possibly influenced
(04:45):
by his father in law's experience, Sidney tried to put
it into production himself with the help of one of
his brothers. According to Beatrice, he and a brother only
managed to make one presser, which they sold for fourteen dollars.
According to Mildred, Sidney wanted to develop it with his brothers,
but he couldn't get their interest, and ultimately he sold
(05:06):
the rights to the design for much less than she
thought it was worth. Later on, Sidney Davidson was also
issued US patent two six zero seven one zero three
on what he called a body lifter. This was meant
for mortuary staff to use to move people's bodies, and
it could also serve as a mortuary table. It was
(05:27):
designed to be easy to slip under a person's body,
and it could be used like a stretcher to carry
living people who for whatever reason couldn't be moved with
some other type of stretcher. He also designed a long
handled brush that could dispense water that was to be
used for washing trains, although I wasn't able to find
a patent for that one. Mary Beatrice Davidson was born
(05:51):
in Monroe, North Carolina, on May seventeenth, nineteen twelve. Her
name appears in multiple ways in newspapers and other written
documents from her lifetime, sometimes as Mary Beatrice, sometimes m Beatrice,
and sometimes just Beatrice. Later on in her life, people
called her aunt. B Monroe is considered part of the
(06:13):
Charlotte metropolitan area today, and Mildred Ethel Davidson was born
in Charlotte on January thirty first, nineteen sixteen. Beatrice and
Mildred also had two brothers, Perry, who was the oldest,
and Leyton, who was born between Beatrice and Mildred. The
family lived in a predominantly white part of town, and
(06:34):
when the children reached school age, they had to go
to private school because there wasn't a public school in
the neighborhood that would accept black children. When Beatrice was
five and Mildred was an infant, Beatrice was seriously burned.
Perry and a cousin had been told that if they
raked leaves, Santa Claus would be good to them, and
(06:54):
Beatrice thought that if she helped, he might be good
to her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The boys had raked the lead into two piles, and
she decided to combine them, not realizing that they had
just set fire to one of those piles. She grabbed
an armful of leaves from that pile, and by the
time she realized they were burning, some of them were
sticking to her clothing.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Beatrice's burns were mainly around her mouth and chin, and
the doctors who came to see her did not expect
her to live because of the smoke and flame that
she had inhaled. At the time, the only hospital in
the Charlotte area that accepted black patients didn't have a
lot of experience treating burns, so her mother, Nelly, and
her paternal grandmother, who worked as both a midwife and
(07:38):
a veterinarian, cared for her around the clock themselves for weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Beatrice recovered, but she had scars around her lips and chin,
which she was teased and bullied over. Even adults told
her that she would never amount to anything because of
the scars on her face. This is another reason why
it seems like those photos are probably miss attributed. There
is no suggestion of a scar in the photo that
(08:04):
is usually used to represent her. Beatrice described herself as
becoming more and more determined to make something of herself
every time someone said something like this to her.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, the photo that's usually used for Beatrice is like
a really pretty clear, straightforward view of her face, and
the ones that I think really are of Beatrice are
more like low resolution scans of things that ran in newspapers,
and so the photos are not as clear as the
(08:37):
one that's typically used for Beatrice that I think is
really of her sister. Beatrice also described herself as mechanically minded.
The first time she tried to invent something, she was
six years old. One of their doors had a squeaky hinge,
and after somebody oiled it, it would not take very
long for it to start squeaking again. She told her
(08:58):
mother that there should be a self oiling doorhinge, and
she had an idea for how to do this. She
worked on that idea until her hands hurt, but she
never quite nailed it.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Another idea she.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Had as a kid was a convertible roof that could
be used to protect the people who were riding on
the rumble seat of a car. And she designed a
sponge tip for the end of an umbrella so that
when you closed the umbrella and left it upside down
after you'd used it, the water would collect in that
sponge rather than pooling on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I think that's so ingenious. In nineteen twenty four, when
Beatrice was twelve and Mildred was eight, the family moved
to Washington, d c. Their mother Nelly had a sister
who lived there and had fallen in love with the
city while visiting. This opened up some new educational opportunities
for the children. Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School was the
(09:50):
first public high school for black students in the United States,
and it had developed a reputation for academic excellence. Washington,
d in the nineteen twenties, was also a much bigger
city than Charlotte, and that brought some other opportunities for
the siblings. While their father was an inventor, their mother
(10:11):
loved art and music, and in the early nineteen thirties, Perry, Beatrice,
and Mildred formed a musical trio. Sometimes it was called
Spade Flush and sometimes Perry and his sisters. They started
performing publicly and on the radio, and they got some
interest to get a music deal, but Mildred was still
a minor and she would have needed their father's permission
(10:34):
to sign any kind of contract. Sidney would not give
that permission because he was concerned about what it would
look like for a minister to allow his children to
perform in public, even though two of the children were
effectively adults by that point. He also did not think
that the jazz music they were singing was appropriate. While
(10:56):
Sydney had owned multiple businesses in Charlotte, after the family
he moved to Washington, d C. He had trouble finding work.
According to an interview that Beatrice gave in the nineteen nineties,
he left Washington to conduct their oldest brother's funeral, and
he didn't come back but for a while afterward. He
did send money from time to time, but that doesn't
(11:18):
seem correct. The youngest of the Davidson siblings, Leyton, died
in nineteen twenty six at the age of eleven after
an accidental injury, and he was buried back in Charlotte.
But Perry lived until nineteen fifty six, when his sisters
were in their forties, and his funeral was held in Washington,
d C. When Sydney died, he was also living in
(11:40):
d C, and according to his death notice, he was
minister at Washington, d C's Guildfield Baptist Church. So it's
possible that Beatrice misspoke during this interview, or that the
interviewer misunderstood her, or that there's just some other explanation
for this confusion. Beatrice and Mildred both graduated from Dunbar
(12:00):
High School, and as they became adults, their lives started
to diverge a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And we will take a quick sponsor break, and after
we get back we will focus more on Beatrice for
a little bit. We said earlier that Beatrice Davidson started
thinking of inventions when she was still a child. After
(12:28):
the family moved to Washington, d c. She started visiting
the US Patent and Trademark Office and learning how that
process worked and researching whether other people had already patented
any of her ideas. She also volunteered at a hospital,
and she wanted to train to become a nurse. She
said that she planned to go to the Tuskegee Institute
(12:49):
and that her father had said that he would pay
for her to go, but that money never materialized. It
is very possible that this was just because of what
was going going on in the world when Beatrice would
have been ready to go to nursing school. She graduated
from Dunbar in nineteen thirty one, so that was during
the Great Depression. Beatrice kept trying to invent things, and
(13:13):
she took on various jobs to try to earn enough
money to cover the cost of patenting them. She also
liked to cook and play the piano, and she really
liked to go out and see plays and other performances.
Eventually she got a job with the federal government. Various
sources say she started at the Census Bureau in nineteen
forty one and later moved on to the General Accounting
(13:35):
Office now known as the Government Accountability Office. This is
the independent, nonpartisan agency sometimes known as the investigative Arm
of Congress, which has existed to do things like audit
government agencies, investigate allegations of fraud and waste, and provide
reports on government efficiency since nineteen twenty one. For more
(13:55):
than one hundred years.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The GAO has done this through actual accounting, audit, and
nuns investigatory procedures, not by feeding things into a large
language model and using its output to decide what to
cut and who to fire. Several articles about Beatrice say
that during World War II, in addition to volunteering as
a nurse with the Red Cross, she worked as a
(14:16):
dance chaperone. Although she was unmarried at this point, she
would have been in her thirties.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
A couple of sources say that she met a soldier
at one of these dances, fell in love with him,
and got married, with that marriage ending in a divorce
five years later. I could not find confirmation of this
marriage or who it was to, and Beatrice does not
mention it in the interviews that I had access to.
But her sister Mildred did get married in nineteen thirty eight,
(14:46):
and Mildred's husband did serve in World War Two, and
that marriage did end in divorce. So it is not
fully clear to me whether this is just another point
of confusion between the two sisters, or if Beatrice had
a man marriage in the forties that she just did
not want to talk about later. We do know that
Beatrice married James Kenner, known as Jabbo, in nineteen fifty one.
(15:10):
Jabo was one of the founders of the Black Police
Boys Club, a precursor to the Metropolitan Police Boys and
Girls Club. He had also been a professional boxer with
a promising career, including winning the Middle Atlantic Coast Black
Heavyweight Championship. His boxing style is where the name Jabbo
came from, but his boxing career had been derailed when
(15:32):
he contracted tuberculosis in nineteen forty three. That was the
same year that the antibiotic streptomycin was first isolated, which
was the first really effective treatment for TB. We covered
streptomisin's development on the show back in twenty thirteen. Jabo
was treated at Glendale Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Glendale, Maryland, and
(15:53):
it took years for him to fully recover. After that,
he focused on working with youth, including becoming director of
the Boys and Girls Club. A nineteen forty seven article
on him describes him as a hero to the area's youngsters.
As a little snapshot from their married life, Beatrice loved
to find four leaf clovers out in their yard, and
(16:15):
there was one patch of grass that she would not
let him cut so that she could hunt for clovers there.
When she found one, she would make a wish on
it and then she would press it in a book.
She and her husband worked together on youth programs and
they eventually became foster parents and they adopted at least
one son from foster care. Beatrice was awarded her first
(16:36):
patent in nineteen fifty six. That was US Patent two
seven four five four oh six sanitary belt. This is
something she had been working on and improving since she
was a teenager, and it is her most well known
invention today, so to talk about it, we need to
talk a little bit about the history of menstrual protection.
(16:57):
Generally speaking, in the very very distant past, it's likely
that people's menstrual periods were lighter and that people had
fewer of them because they were pregnant a lot more
often and also didn't have the robust nutrition that most
of us, at least here in the US have today.
The first written references to some kind of menstrual protection
(17:19):
are pretty recent relative to how long people have been
having periods. According to a number of sources, it is
the story of Hypatia throwing one of her menstrul rags
at a man who would not leave her alone. We
talk about that in our episode on Her that ran
as a Saturday Classic on January twentieth of twenty twenty four.
(17:40):
Hypatia lived around the fourth century, but this story about
her throwing her rags at someone that first appeared in
writing around the tenth century, So there's some speculation that
hundreds are maybe more like thousands of years ago. People
might have just bled into their clothes, especially since in
a lot of cultures it was and in some cases
(18:01):
still is expected for people to isolate themselves and rest
when they were menstruating. At some point people started using
some kind of absorbent material to try to contain the
blood during their periods, and historically there has been a
lot of ingenuity and problem solving involved in dealing with
menstrual bleeding. The kinds of materials people have used have
(18:24):
depended on where they lived and what was available there,
so rags, moss, wool paper, cotton, animal furs or skins,
and dried dung wrapped in cloth are among the many options.
A lot of times writing about this is really focused
on how some of these seem like they wouldn't work
very well, but like people were also figuring it out. Yeah,
(18:47):
were solving problems and discovering solutions. A lot of these
are also still in use in various places around the world,
and in some cases homemade homegrown products work fine. A
lot of them are definitely more sustainable than most of
today's mass produced tampons and pads, which can create a
lot of plastic waste. But for a lot of people,
(19:10):
options like rags or moss or animal dung just aren't
very comfortable or effective. Combined with stigma around menstruation and
a lack of access to reliable menstrual products and to
bathrooms and to clean water. All that together is a
source of systemic sex based disadvantage known as period poverty.
(19:33):
This includes kids in some parts of the world missing
school during their periods or dropping out of school entirely
after they start menstruating, and that brings us back to
Beatrice Kenner's invention. By the nineteenth century, people in Europe
and North America were mostly using some kind of pad
made of flannel or woven cloth, often homemade, which was
(19:55):
meant to be washed and reused. Then, in the late
nineteenth century, companies started making and selling disposable pads.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One of the first was released by Johnson and Johnson
in eighteen eighty seven, and it was called Lister's Towels
Sanitary Napkins for Ladies. Joseph Lister did not have anything
to do with this. His name was just associated with hygiene.
This pad had loops at each end that could be
threaded through a belt to hold it in place. Even
(20:24):
with the Lister name, though, these did not sell very well,
and that's attributed to how much stigma there was about
menstruation and people's reluctance to buy something that was obviously
for use during their periods.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
For decades after this, commercially made pads followed this same
basic model. There was something absorbent that would be attached
to a belt with loops or clips or buttons or hooks.
That absorbent material improved during World War One alongside wound
dressings that were being used on the battlefield. Some sources
(20:59):
attribute part of this evolution to nurses using these dressings
as pads. A big innovation during this time was cell
you cotton, which was a cottony material made from cellulose.
So the shift to disposable, commercially made pads around the
turn of the twentieth century was simultaneously driven by the
(21:19):
hygiene movement, industrialization, and warfare.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
While these pads were usually more absorbent than layers of
flannel or another cloth, they were still a lot bulkier
than most of today's commercial pads, and the belts had
a number of issues. Many of them were similarly bulky
and just uncomfortable to wear. Some of them were sold
by size, and they weren't really adjustable, so they could
(21:44):
become too big or too small if somebody's weight fluctuated
during their period, which is absolutely normal in the case
for a lot of people. A lot of designs also
didn't really work well if someone was moving around a lot.
The pad was sort of suspended in the same place
all the time, regardless of whether someone was standing or
sitting or bending over, so when a person moved in
(22:08):
the pad didn't, it might not be in the right
place to absorb the blood anymore, and it could also
just bunch up uncomfortably under a person's clothing.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Beatrice's invention addressed a lot of these issues. It was,
in the words of her patent quote, extremely simple and construction,
easy to use, adjustable for various sized persons, well adapted
for its intended purpose, and very inexpensive to manufacture. It
was so compact and so inexpensive that it could be
(22:39):
included along with the pad in the dispensers in public places.
In addition to being adjustable, it included adhesive portions for
attaching the pad, and it was designed so that the
pad could slide back and forth, so it held the
pad snugly against the body, and as the wearer moved around,
the pad would slide along the middle part of the
(23:01):
belt and move with them so it stayed in the
right place. According to Beatrice's interviews, there was a company
interested in bringing this sanitary belt to market. Various articles
say it was the sun nap Pack Company. That first
part is spelled s NN, but this is probably a misspelling.
(23:21):
It's a name that only seems to exist in articles
about Beatrice Kenner.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
On the other hand, san Nappack spelled sa N and
later called Doe Skin Products was a real company that
made things like facial tissue and cellulose sanitary napkins. In
Beatrice's account, someone from the company came to meet with
her and was obviously startled when they realized she was black,
and at that point they immediately lost interest. In nineteen
(23:50):
sixty nine, Beatrice was awarded US patent two eight eight
one seven six' one for an improvement on this. Design
it still featured an adjustable waste belts and attachments that
allowed the pad to move around with the. Wearer the
improvement was the attachment for the. Pad this time it
was a moisture proof pocket to help prevent. Leaks neither
(24:14):
Of Beatrice kenner's sanitary belt designs was ever brought to,
market and her patents expired in nineteen seventy. Three in
nineteen seventy, six a number of sources kind of make
it sound like manufacturers just jumped on her design once
her patents had, expired but that's not really the. Case
by the nineteen, seventies manufacturers were moving away from sanitary
(24:35):
belts thanks to the development of adhesives that could keep
a pad attached to a person's underwear without damaging that
underwear when the pad was. Removed the first adhesive pads
were introduced in nineteen sixty, nine And kenner's first patent
did involve an, adhesive but the adhesive itself was not
described in that.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Patent by the time her patents, expired there were also other,
modern commercial made options for menstrual, protection including tampons and menstrul.
Cups both of these had already existed in some form before,
that but they were introduced as manufactured consumer products in
the nineteen. Thirties tampons took a while to catch on
(25:17):
because of concerns about safety and, hygiene and stigma and
misconceptions around the concept of, virginity but by the seventies
tampons were widely available and they had become a lot more.
Popular menstrul cups also didn't really catch on, immediately but
they have had a resurgence in more recent. Years Beatrice
kenner's next patent has a connection to her. Sister so
(25:40):
we're going to take another sponsor break and then hop
over To mildred's story for a. Bit, earlier we talked about,
how while still a, Teen Mildred davidson had started performing
as a singer with her. Siblings she described singing as
(26:04):
being in her. Blood after she graduated From Dunbar High,
school she wasn't really sure what she wanted to do
with her, life and she took a little time trying
to figure it. Out after she decided to make music her,
career she enrolled At Howard University school Of, music which
is now part Of Howard's CHADWICK. A Bosman college Of Fine.
Arts she studied there for about two and a half,
(26:27):
years and while she was still in, college she also
started touring as a. Singer as we mentioned, earlier On
january twenty, ninth nineteen thirty, eight just a couple of
days before her twenty second, Birthday mildred got married To
Ralph Edward, austin and they had two, Sons ronald And Ralph.
Junior Ralph senior was a, minister and he seems to
(26:48):
have had similar opinions About mildred's musical career to the
ones that her, Father sidney. Had mildred was offered the
chance to audition for the role Of carmen in an
all black staging of that, opera But ralph objected to
the idea of her playing that, role basically Describing carmen
as having low. Morals So mildred didn't do, it and
(27:09):
that was something she expressed regret about. Later at some,
Point mildred And ralph, divorced and by the time her
father died in nineteen fifty, six she had Married Ray.
Smith that marriage eventually ended in divorce as. Well mildred
did keep, singing though in addition to her solo performances
she performed with The National Negro Opera. Company she also
(27:32):
sang in a number of church choirs and eventually became
choir director At Tabor Presbyterian church In, washington d.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
C like her, Sister mildred was a federal, employee also
working at The General Accounting. Office she left THE goo
in nineteen sixty one at the age of forty, five
because she was experiencing disabling physical symptoms that were affecting
her ability to, work and these symptoms also affected her musical.
Career she was diagnosed with multiple spleurosis in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
FOUR ms is believed to be an autoimmune. Disease it
involves the body's immune system attacking the milind sheath that
protects the nerve. FIBERS a person's exact symptoms depend on
which nerves are, affected so these symptoms can include things
like numbness and, tingling a lack of, coordination blindness and
(28:24):
other visual, disturbances, dizziness slurred speech and, mood and cognitive.
Changes most people WITH ms have a type known as relapsing,
remitting in which a person experiences cycles of symptom flare
ups followed by periods of relative, remission and this was
the case For. Mildred after her, Diagnosis mildred became a
(28:46):
spokesperson for people WITH, ms holding educational lectures for women's
clubs and other groups about the. Disease she also worked
with The outreach chapter of The National Multiple Sclerosis, society
which had been established as advancement of research on multiple.
Sclerosis in nineteen forty, six she also did one on
one outreach to other people WITH ms and their. Families
(29:10):
As MILDRED'S ms, progressed she started using a walker for,
mobility and in nineteen seventy, six her Sister beatrice was
AWARDED us patent three nine five seven zero seven to,
one which was. QUOTE a carrier attachment including a rigid
tray section and a pocket section is suspended by connecting
straps from one side of the top. Frame the tray
(29:33):
section can be swung to operative position above and supported
by the top frame. Member this was both a pocket
and a. Tray the background section of this patent notes
that while walkers provided a stable supporting structure and valuable
mobility assistance to people who used, them their shape and
(29:53):
their structure also limited a person's ability to hold and
carry things that they might. Need so this device worked
with a structural frame design that was really commonly used
among most of the walkers of the, era and it
provided both a way to carry things and a flat
surface to put things on when. Needed by this point
(30:14):
In beatrice's, life she And jabbo had moved To McLean.
Virginia beatrice had left her job with the federal government
after a series of experiences in which white people with
less experience were promoted over. Her she had opened her
own flower, shop eventually operating five of them in and
around The, WASHINGTON dc. Area this is something else that
(30:35):
the sisters had in. Common mildred had also run her
own flower, shop and later in, life ran the flower
shop for her, Church Shiloh Baptist, church which named her
Its woman of The year in nineteen eighty. One mildred
started developing her invention around the same time That beatrice
was patenting that walker carrier. Attachment during a particularly BAD ms,
(30:59):
Flare mildred wasn't able to leave her, bed and she
said that during that time she thought a lot about
her family and how good they had been to, her
and also what a big family it, was and how
hard it could be to keep up with how everyone
was related to everyone. Else this became the inspiration for
a board game Called Family. Traditions Family traditions involved a
(31:22):
set of playing, cards each of them labeled and illustrated
with a family member or a family. Relationship cards were
shuffled and dealt to the players who used sets of
three cards to fill in family relationships on a game,
board such as my mother's son is my, brother but
also more distant relationships like third and fourth. Cousins players
(31:44):
got points for each relationship they created on the, board
with different family members and relationships earning different numbers of,
points but they lost points for any cards left over
in their hand at the end of the. Game mildred
was AWARDED us patent for two three zero three two
one on this game In october of nineteen eighty and
she also trademarks the name and logo and registered the
(32:06):
copyright on the game. Rules mildred borrowed some money From
beatrice so that she could publish this game, herself selling
out of the first printing of one hundred. Copies she
followed this with another run of five hundred more copies
of the. Game she also created a braille, edition and
in nineteen eighty, two she told a reporter that her
(32:27):
dream was for her game to become as big As
monopoly and allow her to start a company of her
own that she would staff with other disabled. People On
october nineteenth of nineteen eighty, Two beatrice was AWARDED us
patent four three five four six' four to three bathroom.
Tissue holder this was a device that could attach to
(32:48):
a person's existing toilet paper holder on, the wall which
would always keep the free out of the toilet, paper
available so you didn't have to spin the roll around hunting.
For it this looked a.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Little like a short ladder with hooks at, one end
which could attach to the rod on. The holder the
free end of the toilet paper would then be threaded
through the bottom two rungs of. The Ladder on, december
thirteenth nineteen, Eighty three, Beatrice's husband jabbo died after retiring
as director Of the Boys And. Girls club he had
continued to volunteer with young People, in washington. D c
(33:22):
and in the other places where He and. Beatrice lived
there are still youth leagues and facilities in the area
named after. Him today in nineteen, Eighty four beatrice became
ill and she needed. An ambulance she was living In
the kingshill Area, Of, williamsburg virginia where She and jabo
had moved a few years before. His death she was,
(33:43):
ultimately fine but it took a while for the ambulance
to get to her because of. Traffic congestion around The
Nearby bush gardens, theme park and this prompted her to
write a letter To The Newport News daily press proposing
a solution that an emergency lane be built in the
grassy media Area of, route sixty which Ran Past. Bush
gardens she wrote that this would allow emergency vehicles to
(34:06):
respond faster and also prevent lawsuits against the county in
the amusement park if people died or lost their homes
to a fire because emergency vehicles couldn't. Get through she
handed her letter to the, EDITOR quote i am aware
that this has been recognized as a. Problem, area however
recognition solves no problems and saves.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
No lives in nineteen, Eighty seven beatrice was issued another
patent number four six nine six zero Six eight shower
wall and bathtub. Mounted backwasher this is a pad of
foam covered in terrycloth mounted to a rigid plate that
could be stuck to the shower wall with. Suction cups
(34:46):
it had a pouch for a bar of, soap quote
so that a person taking a shower or bath can
position their back or any other inaccessible area of their
body against the surface of the terry cloth or other
fabric cover by my removing the body area engaged with
the cover provide a washing or massaging function on the
surface area of. The body the fabric elements of this
(35:09):
invention were all removable so that they could. Be laundered
it's not documented anywhere whether the backwasher and the toilet
paper holder came About because beatrice was trying To make
mildred's home, more accessible but it's certainly within the realm.
Of possibility sometime after this last patent, Was awarded beatrice
also finished writing, an autobiography which she Titled It Burned
(35:32):
my body but Not My soul And to tracy's knowledge,
in mind this was. Never PUBLISHED. Mildred e smith died At,
her washington. D c Home on, january thirtieth nineteen, ninety
three at the age of. Seventy seven beatrice kept inventing
things to the rest of, her life although she didn't
patent any. Of them in, her eighties she worked on
(35:54):
a protective device for seat belts that She called nicholas
to keep the belt from biting into a. Person's neck
she said she really needed this because she was.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So short. SHOUT out i agree with HER because i
have the. Same problem some of the inventions she talked
about in the last couple of decades of her life
sound a bit more fanciful than the practical ones that
she was issued, patents on like a portable car garage
and a passenger airplane design that would eject debris away
from the passengers in the event of.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
A Crash beatrice kenner Died on, january thirteenth two thousand,
and Six At sibley Hospital, in WASHINGTON. D c at
the age of.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Ninety three various Sources Say beatrice kenner was awarded more
patents than any other black WOMAN in, us history but
that's almost impossible, to substantiate since patent applications don't include
a disclosure of a. Person's race in, some ways this
leveled the playing field for, black inventors who could file
patent applications themselves or with the help of attorneys at
(36:54):
a time when racism would have kept them from accessing.
Other institutions at the, same time the patent process was
still influenced by the same systemic patterns of discrimination as
everything else In The. United states patenting and invention still,
cost money and so did defending a patent, in court
and there's been racial bias in the courtroom for the
(37:16):
entire history Of The. United states it, is, clear Though
that Mildred and beatrice were, both creative innovative women who
both were very savvy about protecting their inventions, through, patents trademarks.
AND copyright i.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Kind of love both.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Of, them yeah they're. Pretty.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
GREAT uh i kept just stumbling onto new THINGS that i, Was,
like oh.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
THAT'S delightful.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I also have listener mail about something, else delightful which.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Is, Pens, oh pens we. Love.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
You yeah this Came. From trish, TRISH wrote i love
listening to, your show especially the episodes about people and
TOPICS that i would never look. Into myself my favorite
shows are the ones that dig into topics that are
often considered boring to and make. Them interesting you do
that very well and make my days much. More interesting
i've developed a habit of spouting random bits of trivia. And.
(38:08):
CONVERSATIONS though i was so happy when this week's topic,
was pens even if the focus was. BALLPOINT pens i
decided to start Journaling in december of. Twenty nineteen this
turned out to be a. GOOD idea i started going
through so many, pens gelpins MOSTLY that i felt guilty
about the. Plastic WASTE when i search for something more,
(38:28):
ENVIRONMENTALLY friendly i fell down the rabbit hole of fountain pen.
Collection culture you can spend a lot of money on.
One pen luckily, for me you can also get some
decent ones for less than twenty. FIVE dollars i grew
up down the road from one of the main cross
pen Factories In, rhode island and my dad carried one
of their fountain pens every day for as LONG as i.
(38:50):
Can remember when he retired a little early in, twenty
twenty he gave me that pen EVERY time i, use
it which is pretty much EVERY day i think. OF
him a good fountain can last. For generations as, a
tip if you don't live near one of the few
places that still specialize in fountain pens and have trouble WITH,
the nib a jeweler can often help. Fix it, pun intended.
(39:12):
Not sorry thank you again for finding and sharing all
the interesting things behind. Everyday topics as a, pet tax
here is My, dog penny who seems to have melted in,
the heat and my feisty but Dumbed, turtle gulliver who
sometimes tries to get off her rock in the wrong
direction and needs to. Be. Rescued trish thank you, So
much trish for this email and for. These pictures we.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Have a picture of.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
A turtle this turtle appears to, be sideways not quite
the direction that the turtle should. Be oriented, and, also
yes a puppy dog doing the thing where they stretch
out with as much of them, as possible touching the
(39:59):
floor where. It's cool the. Swoop yep thank you So
much trish for. This Email maybe i'll give fountain pens
another go someday and SEE if i can find one
with a nib that does not feel unpleasant to me to,
write with because that was my big. Stumbling block if
(40:20):
you would like to send us a note about this
or any, other podcast We're At history podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com and you can subscribe to our show on
the iHeartRadio app and. Anywhere else too late to get.
Your podcasts stuff you Missed In history class is a Production.
(40:40):
Of iHeartRadio for more Podcasts, from iHeartRadio visit the, iHeartRadio App,
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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
and I'm Holly Frye. Holly, you've been on kind of
an inventor kick lately, I have, and I'm joining you now.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome, Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In today's episode is actually on two sisters, Mary Beatrice
Davidson Kenner and Mildred Ethel Davidson Austin Smith. Beatrice's inventions
were focused largely on making life easier and less annoying
for herself and the people around her, including inventions related
(00:45):
to something I personally find pretty annoying, which is our periods. Uh.
Mildred's invention was more about family, and that invention grew
from her disability after she developed multiple sclerosis. This is
one of those subjects where there are just little bits
of misinformation and inaccuracies that have become incredibly widespread and
(01:07):
are now kind of taken as fact because different writers
have all been sourcing the same work and also sourcing
each other. So I've tried to sort out as much
of that as possible, but there are definitely still some gaps. Also,
there is a photo that is purportedly of Beatrice as
a young woman, that is just all over the place,
(01:29):
including as of when we recorded this, things like the
Wikipedia article about her. I'm ninety nine percent sure that
photo is really of Mildred. There's not really as much
recent writing about Mildred, but the photo that is sometimes
used for her is again I'm like ninety nine percent
sure that's really of Beatrice. And the reason that I
(01:52):
think this is that there are also some publicly available
photos of each of them from later on in their lives,
like one of b Beatrice that was included alongside an obituary,
and one of Mildred that was in a nineteen eighty
two article about her. That photo of the older Mildred
looks more like the photo that's usually used on articles
(02:12):
about Beatrice, and then the photo of older Beatrice looks
more like the one that is sometimes used for Mildred.
I also found a photo in newspaper coverage of Mildred's
career as a singer in the thirties that very strongly
resembles that photo that's usually used for Beatrice today. That's
just a thing to be aware of if you go
(02:34):
google these women and see the photos that are being used.
I will talk about the odd giggle this whole thing
gave me in behind the scenes on Friday, Okay. Mildred
and Beatrice came from a family of inventors. Their maternal grandfather,
Robert Pink Fronbarger, worked for a railroad company. In nineteen fifteen,
(02:54):
he and William Floyd Byrome were issued US Patent one
one three four eight seven one for a current supply
system for electrical railways. According to interviews that Beatrice and
Mildred gave later on in their lives, their grandfather also
invented a tricolor signaling system for trains, but he didn't
get the patent on that one. Fronberger was black, and
(03:17):
he demonstrated his invention to some white railroad men before
he had applied for a patent on it. They stole
that design from him, and because of the entrench systems
of racism that he was living and working in, there
really wasn't anything he could do about it. Mildred and
Beatrice's father, Sidney Nathaniel Davidson, was a Baptist minister, and
(03:39):
several of his brothers were ministers as well. Sydney had
a close pressing business and also owned a funeral home,
and he invented things that were related to both of
those professions. In nineteen fourteen, he was awarded a patent
on a close presser that could fit in a person's luggage,
as described in US Past at one zero eight eight
(04:01):
three two nine quote. The object of this invention resides
in the provision of a trouser's creasing device, wherein trousers
may be disposed in a flattened position to be pressed
and creased. This device had multiple hinged leaves with rounded ends,
so that the parts of the pants that were supposed
(04:22):
to be creased stayed creased, but the presser did not
make unwanted creases where the legs of the pants needed
to be folded to fit in the luggage. Beatrice and
Mildred later gave interviews in which they talked about what
happened with this invention. Apparently a company in New York
was interested in bringing it to market, but, possibly influenced
(04:45):
by his father in law's experience, Sidney tried to put
it into production himself with the help of one of
his brothers. According to Beatrice, he and a brother only
managed to make one presser, which they sold for fourteen dollars.
According to Mildred, Sidney wanted to develop it with his brothers,
but he couldn't get their interest, and ultimately he sold
(05:06):
the rights to the design for much less than she
thought it was worth. Later on, Sidney Davidson was also
issued US patent two six zero seven one zero three
on what he called a body lifter. This was meant
for mortuary staff to use to move people's bodies, and
it could also serve as a mortuary table. It was
(05:27):
designed to be easy to slip under a person's body,
and it could be used like a stretcher to carry
living people who for whatever reason couldn't be moved with
some other type of stretcher. He also designed a long
handled brush that could dispense water that was to be
used for washing trains, although I wasn't able to find
a patent for that one. Mary Beatrice Davidson was born
(05:51):
in Monroe, North Carolina, on May seventeenth, nineteen twelve. Her
name appears in multiple ways in newspapers and other written
documents from her lifetime, sometimes as Mary Beatrice, sometimes m Beatrice,
and sometimes just Beatrice. Later on in her life, people
called her aunt. B Monroe is considered part of the
(06:13):
Charlotte metropolitan area today, and Mildred Ethel Davidson was born
in Charlotte on January thirty first, nineteen sixteen. Beatrice and
Mildred also had two brothers, Perry, who was the oldest,
and Leyton, who was born between Beatrice and Mildred. The
family lived in a predominantly white part of town, and
(06:34):
when the children reached school age, they had to go
to private school because there wasn't a public school in
the neighborhood that would accept black children. When Beatrice was
five and Mildred was an infant, Beatrice was seriously burned.
Perry and a cousin had been told that if they
raked leaves, Santa Claus would be good to them, and
(06:54):
Beatrice thought that if she helped, he might be good
to her as well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The boys had raked the lead into two piles, and
she decided to combine them, not realizing that they had
just set fire to one of those piles. She grabbed
an armful of leaves from that pile, and by the
time she realized they were burning, some of them were
sticking to her clothing.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Beatrice's burns were mainly around her mouth and chin, and
the doctors who came to see her did not expect
her to live because of the smoke and flame that
she had inhaled. At the time, the only hospital in
the Charlotte area that accepted black patients didn't have a
lot of experience treating burns, so her mother, Nelly, and
her paternal grandmother, who worked as both a midwife and
(07:38):
a veterinarian, cared for her around the clock themselves for weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Beatrice recovered, but she had scars around her lips and chin,
which she was teased and bullied over. Even adults told
her that she would never amount to anything because of
the scars on her face. This is another reason why
it seems like those photos are probably miss attributed. There
is no suggestion of a scar in the photo that
(08:04):
is usually used to represent her. Beatrice described herself as
becoming more and more determined to make something of herself
every time someone said something like this to her.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, the photo that's usually used for Beatrice is like
a really pretty clear, straightforward view of her face, and
the ones that I think really are of Beatrice are
more like low resolution scans of things that ran in newspapers,
and so the photos are not as clear as the
(08:37):
one that's typically used for Beatrice that I think is
really of her sister. Beatrice also described herself as mechanically minded.
The first time she tried to invent something, she was
six years old. One of their doors had a squeaky hinge,
and after somebody oiled it, it would not take very
long for it to start squeaking again. She told her
(08:58):
mother that there should be a self oiling doorhinge, and
she had an idea for how to do this. She
worked on that idea until her hands hurt, but she
never quite nailed it.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Another idea she.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Had as a kid was a convertible roof that could
be used to protect the people who were riding on
the rumble seat of a car. And she designed a
sponge tip for the end of an umbrella so that
when you closed the umbrella and left it upside down
after you'd used it, the water would collect in that
sponge rather than pooling on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I think that's so ingenious. In nineteen twenty four, when
Beatrice was twelve and Mildred was eight, the family moved
to Washington, d c. Their mother Nelly had a sister
who lived there and had fallen in love with the
city while visiting. This opened up some new educational opportunities
for the children. Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School was the
(09:50):
first public high school for black students in the United States,
and it had developed a reputation for academic excellence. Washington,
d in the nineteen twenties, was also a much bigger
city than Charlotte, and that brought some other opportunities for
the siblings. While their father was an inventor, their mother
(10:11):
loved art and music, and in the early nineteen thirties, Perry, Beatrice,
and Mildred formed a musical trio. Sometimes it was called
Spade Flush and sometimes Perry and his sisters. They started
performing publicly and on the radio, and they got some
interest to get a music deal, but Mildred was still
a minor and she would have needed their father's permission
(10:34):
to sign any kind of contract. Sidney would not give
that permission because he was concerned about what it would
look like for a minister to allow his children to
perform in public, even though two of the children were
effectively adults by that point. He also did not think
that the jazz music they were singing was appropriate. While
(10:56):
Sydney had owned multiple businesses in Charlotte, after the family
he moved to Washington, d C. He had trouble finding work.
According to an interview that Beatrice gave in the nineteen nineties,
he left Washington to conduct their oldest brother's funeral, and
he didn't come back but for a while afterward. He
did send money from time to time, but that doesn't
(11:18):
seem correct. The youngest of the Davidson siblings, Leyton, died
in nineteen twenty six at the age of eleven after
an accidental injury, and he was buried back in Charlotte.
But Perry lived until nineteen fifty six, when his sisters
were in their forties, and his funeral was held in Washington,
d C. When Sydney died, he was also living in
(11:40):
d C, and according to his death notice, he was
minister at Washington, d C's Guildfield Baptist Church. So it's
possible that Beatrice misspoke during this interview, or that the
interviewer misunderstood her, or that there's just some other explanation
for this confusion. Beatrice and Mildred both graduated from Dunbar
(12:00):
High School, and as they became adults, their lives started
to diverge a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And we will take a quick sponsor break, and after
we get back we will focus more on Beatrice for
a little bit. We said earlier that Beatrice Davidson started
thinking of inventions when she was still a child. After
(12:28):
the family moved to Washington, d c. She started visiting
the US Patent and Trademark Office and learning how that
process worked and researching whether other people had already patented
any of her ideas. She also volunteered at a hospital,
and she wanted to train to become a nurse. She
said that she planned to go to the Tuskegee Institute
(12:49):
and that her father had said that he would pay
for her to go, but that money never materialized. It
is very possible that this was just because of what
was going going on in the world when Beatrice would
have been ready to go to nursing school. She graduated
from Dunbar in nineteen thirty one, so that was during
the Great Depression. Beatrice kept trying to invent things, and
(13:13):
she took on various jobs to try to earn enough
money to cover the cost of patenting them. She also
liked to cook and play the piano, and she really
liked to go out and see plays and other performances.
Eventually she got a job with the federal government. Various
sources say she started at the Census Bureau in nineteen
forty one and later moved on to the General Accounting
(13:35):
Office now known as the Government Accountability Office. This is
the independent, nonpartisan agency sometimes known as the investigative Arm
of Congress, which has existed to do things like audit
government agencies, investigate allegations of fraud and waste, and provide
reports on government efficiency since nineteen twenty one. For more
(13:55):
than one hundred years.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The GAO has done this through actual accounting, audit, and
nuns investigatory procedures, not by feeding things into a large
language model and using its output to decide what to
cut and who to fire. Several articles about Beatrice say
that during World War II, in addition to volunteering as
a nurse with the Red Cross, she worked as a
(14:16):
dance chaperone. Although she was unmarried at this point, she
would have been in her thirties.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
A couple of sources say that she met a soldier
at one of these dances, fell in love with him,
and got married, with that marriage ending in a divorce
five years later. I could not find confirmation of this
marriage or who it was to, and Beatrice does not
mention it in the interviews that I had access to.
But her sister Mildred did get married in nineteen thirty eight,
(14:46):
and Mildred's husband did serve in World War Two, and
that marriage did end in divorce. So it is not
fully clear to me whether this is just another point
of confusion between the two sisters, or if Beatrice had
a man marriage in the forties that she just did
not want to talk about later. We do know that
Beatrice married James Kenner, known as Jabbo, in nineteen fifty one.
(15:10):
Jabo was one of the founders of the Black Police
Boys Club, a precursor to the Metropolitan Police Boys and
Girls Club. He had also been a professional boxer with
a promising career, including winning the Middle Atlantic Coast Black
Heavyweight Championship. His boxing style is where the name Jabbo
came from, but his boxing career had been derailed when
(15:32):
he contracted tuberculosis in nineteen forty three. That was the
same year that the antibiotic streptomycin was first isolated, which
was the first really effective treatment for TB. We covered
streptomisin's development on the show back in twenty thirteen. Jabo
was treated at Glendale Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Glendale, Maryland, and
(15:53):
it took years for him to fully recover. After that,
he focused on working with youth, including becoming director of
the Boys and Girls Club. A nineteen forty seven article
on him describes him as a hero to the area's youngsters.
As a little snapshot from their married life, Beatrice loved
to find four leaf clovers out in their yard, and
(16:15):
there was one patch of grass that she would not
let him cut so that she could hunt for clovers there.
When she found one, she would make a wish on
it and then she would press it in a book.
She and her husband worked together on youth programs and
they eventually became foster parents and they adopted at least
one son from foster care. Beatrice was awarded her first
(16:36):
patent in nineteen fifty six. That was US Patent two
seven four five four oh six sanitary belt. This is
something she had been working on and improving since she
was a teenager, and it is her most well known
invention today, so to talk about it, we need to
talk a little bit about the history of menstrual protection.
(16:57):
Generally speaking, in the very very distant past, it's likely
that people's menstrual periods were lighter and that people had
fewer of them because they were pregnant a lot more
often and also didn't have the robust nutrition that most
of us, at least here in the US have today.
The first written references to some kind of menstrual protection
(17:19):
are pretty recent relative to how long people have been
having periods. According to a number of sources, it is
the story of Hypatia throwing one of her menstrul rags
at a man who would not leave her alone. We
talk about that in our episode on Her that ran
as a Saturday Classic on January twentieth of twenty twenty four.
(17:40):
Hypatia lived around the fourth century, but this story about
her throwing her rags at someone that first appeared in
writing around the tenth century, So there's some speculation that
hundreds are maybe more like thousands of years ago. People
might have just bled into their clothes, especially since in
a lot of cultures it was and in some cases
(18:01):
still is expected for people to isolate themselves and rest
when they were menstruating. At some point people started using
some kind of absorbent material to try to contain the
blood during their periods, and historically there has been a
lot of ingenuity and problem solving involved in dealing with
menstrual bleeding. The kinds of materials people have used have
(18:24):
depended on where they lived and what was available there,
so rags, moss, wool paper, cotton, animal furs or skins,
and dried dung wrapped in cloth are among the many options.
A lot of times writing about this is really focused
on how some of these seem like they wouldn't work
very well, but like people were also figuring it out. Yeah,
(18:47):
were solving problems and discovering solutions. A lot of these
are also still in use in various places around the world,
and in some cases homemade homegrown products work fine. A
lot of them are definitely more sustainable than most of
today's mass produced tampons and pads, which can create a
lot of plastic waste. But for a lot of people,
(19:10):
options like rags or moss or animal dung just aren't
very comfortable or effective. Combined with stigma around menstruation and
a lack of access to reliable menstrual products and to
bathrooms and to clean water. All that together is a
source of systemic sex based disadvantage known as period poverty.
(19:33):
This includes kids in some parts of the world missing
school during their periods or dropping out of school entirely
after they start menstruating, and that brings us back to
Beatrice Kenner's invention. By the nineteenth century, people in Europe
and North America were mostly using some kind of pad
made of flannel or woven cloth, often homemade, which was
(19:55):
meant to be washed and reused. Then, in the late
nineteenth century, companies started making and selling disposable pads.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One of the first was released by Johnson and Johnson
in eighteen eighty seven, and it was called Lister's Towels
Sanitary Napkins for Ladies. Joseph Lister did not have anything
to do with this. His name was just associated with hygiene.
This pad had loops at each end that could be
threaded through a belt to hold it in place. Even
(20:24):
with the Lister name, though, these did not sell very well,
and that's attributed to how much stigma there was about
menstruation and people's reluctance to buy something that was obviously
for use during their periods.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
For decades after this, commercially made pads followed this same
basic model. There was something absorbent that would be attached
to a belt with loops or clips or buttons or hooks.
That absorbent material improved during World War One alongside wound
dressings that were being used on the battlefield. Some sources
(20:59):
attribute part of this evolution to nurses using these dressings
as pads. A big innovation during this time was cell
you cotton, which was a cottony material made from cellulose.
So the shift to disposable, commercially made pads around the
turn of the twentieth century was simultaneously driven by the
(21:19):
hygiene movement, industrialization, and warfare.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
While these pads were usually more absorbent than layers of
flannel or another cloth, they were still a lot bulkier
than most of today's commercial pads, and the belts had
a number of issues. Many of them were similarly bulky
and just uncomfortable to wear. Some of them were sold
by size, and they weren't really adjustable, so they could
(21:44):
become too big or too small if somebody's weight fluctuated
during their period, which is absolutely normal in the case
for a lot of people. A lot of designs also
didn't really work well if someone was moving around a lot.
The pad was sort of suspended in the same place
all the time, regardless of whether someone was standing or
sitting or bending over, so when a person moved in
(22:08):
the pad didn't, it might not be in the right
place to absorb the blood anymore, and it could also
just bunch up uncomfortably under a person's clothing.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Beatrice's invention addressed a lot of these issues. It was,
in the words of her patent quote, extremely simple and construction,
easy to use, adjustable for various sized persons, well adapted
for its intended purpose, and very inexpensive to manufacture. It
was so compact and so inexpensive that it could be
(22:39):
included along with the pad in the dispensers in public places.
In addition to being adjustable, it included adhesive portions for
attaching the pad, and it was designed so that the
pad could slide back and forth, so it held the
pad snugly against the body, and as the wearer moved around,
the pad would slide along the middle part of the
(23:01):
belt and move with them so it stayed in the
right place. According to Beatrice's interviews, there was a company
interested in bringing this sanitary belt to market. Various articles
say it was the sun nap Pack Company. That first
part is spelled s NN, but this is probably a misspelling.
(23:21):
It's a name that only seems to exist in articles
about Beatrice Kenner.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
On the other hand, san Nappack spelled sa N and
later called Doe Skin Products was a real company that
made things like facial tissue and cellulose sanitary napkins. In
Beatrice's account, someone from the company came to meet with
her and was obviously startled when they realized she was black,
and at that point they immediately lost interest. In nineteen
(23:50):
sixty nine, Beatrice was awarded US patent two eight eight
one seven six' one for an improvement on this. Design
it still featured an adjustable waste belts and attachments that
allowed the pad to move around with the. Wearer the
improvement was the attachment for the. Pad this time it
was a moisture proof pocket to help prevent. Leaks neither
(24:14):
Of Beatrice kenner's sanitary belt designs was ever brought to,
market and her patents expired in nineteen seventy. Three in
nineteen seventy, six a number of sources kind of make
it sound like manufacturers just jumped on her design once
her patents had, expired but that's not really the. Case
by the nineteen, seventies manufacturers were moving away from sanitary
(24:35):
belts thanks to the development of adhesives that could keep
a pad attached to a person's underwear without damaging that
underwear when the pad was. Removed the first adhesive pads
were introduced in nineteen sixty, nine And kenner's first patent
did involve an, adhesive but the adhesive itself was not
described in that.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Patent by the time her patents, expired there were also other,
modern commercial made options for menstrual, protection including tampons and menstrul.
Cups both of these had already existed in some form before,
that but they were introduced as manufactured consumer products in
the nineteen. Thirties tampons took a while to catch on
(25:17):
because of concerns about safety and, hygiene and stigma and
misconceptions around the concept of, virginity but by the seventies
tampons were widely available and they had become a lot more.
Popular menstrul cups also didn't really catch on, immediately but
they have had a resurgence in more recent. Years Beatrice
kenner's next patent has a connection to her. Sister so
(25:40):
we're going to take another sponsor break and then hop
over To mildred's story for a. Bit, earlier we talked about,
how while still a, Teen Mildred davidson had started performing
as a singer with her. Siblings she described singing as
(26:04):
being in her. Blood after she graduated From Dunbar High,
school she wasn't really sure what she wanted to do
with her, life and she took a little time trying
to figure it. Out after she decided to make music her,
career she enrolled At Howard University school Of, music which
is now part Of Howard's CHADWICK. A Bosman college Of Fine.
Arts she studied there for about two and a half,
(26:27):
years and while she was still in, college she also
started touring as a. Singer as we mentioned, earlier On
january twenty, ninth nineteen thirty, eight just a couple of
days before her twenty second, Birthday mildred got married To
Ralph Edward, austin and they had two, Sons ronald And Ralph.
Junior Ralph senior was a, minister and he seems to
(26:48):
have had similar opinions About mildred's musical career to the
ones that her, Father sidney. Had mildred was offered the
chance to audition for the role Of carmen in an
all black staging of that, opera But ralph objected to
the idea of her playing that, role basically Describing carmen
as having low. Morals So mildred didn't do, it and
(27:09):
that was something she expressed regret about. Later at some,
Point mildred And ralph, divorced and by the time her
father died in nineteen fifty, six she had Married Ray.
Smith that marriage eventually ended in divorce as. Well mildred
did keep, singing though in addition to her solo performances
she performed with The National Negro Opera. Company she also
(27:32):
sang in a number of church choirs and eventually became
choir director At Tabor Presbyterian church In, washington d.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
C like her, Sister mildred was a federal, employee also
working at The General Accounting. Office she left THE goo
in nineteen sixty one at the age of forty, five
because she was experiencing disabling physical symptoms that were affecting
her ability to, work and these symptoms also affected her musical.
Career she was diagnosed with multiple spleurosis in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
FOUR ms is believed to be an autoimmune. Disease it
involves the body's immune system attacking the milind sheath that
protects the nerve. FIBERS a person's exact symptoms depend on
which nerves are, affected so these symptoms can include things
like numbness and, tingling a lack of, coordination blindness and
(28:24):
other visual, disturbances, dizziness slurred speech and, mood and cognitive.
Changes most people WITH ms have a type known as relapsing,
remitting in which a person experiences cycles of symptom flare
ups followed by periods of relative, remission and this was
the case For. Mildred after her, Diagnosis mildred became a
(28:46):
spokesperson for people WITH, ms holding educational lectures for women's
clubs and other groups about the. Disease she also worked
with The outreach chapter of The National Multiple Sclerosis, society
which had been established as advancement of research on multiple.
Sclerosis in nineteen forty, six she also did one on
one outreach to other people WITH ms and their. Families
(29:10):
As MILDRED'S ms, progressed she started using a walker for,
mobility and in nineteen seventy, six her Sister beatrice was
AWARDED us patent three nine five seven zero seven to,
one which was. QUOTE a carrier attachment including a rigid
tray section and a pocket section is suspended by connecting
straps from one side of the top. Frame the tray
(29:33):
section can be swung to operative position above and supported
by the top frame. Member this was both a pocket
and a. Tray the background section of this patent notes
that while walkers provided a stable supporting structure and valuable
mobility assistance to people who used, them their shape and
(29:53):
their structure also limited a person's ability to hold and
carry things that they might. Need so this device worked
with a structural frame design that was really commonly used
among most of the walkers of the, era and it
provided both a way to carry things and a flat
surface to put things on when. Needed by this point
(30:14):
In beatrice's, life she And jabbo had moved To McLean.
Virginia beatrice had left her job with the federal government
after a series of experiences in which white people with
less experience were promoted over. Her she had opened her
own flower, shop eventually operating five of them in and
around The, WASHINGTON dc. Area this is something else that
(30:35):
the sisters had in. Common mildred had also run her
own flower, shop and later in, life ran the flower
shop for her, Church Shiloh Baptist, church which named her
Its woman of The year in nineteen eighty. One mildred
started developing her invention around the same time That beatrice
was patenting that walker carrier. Attachment during a particularly BAD ms,
(30:59):
Flare mildred wasn't able to leave her, bed and she
said that during that time she thought a lot about
her family and how good they had been to, her
and also what a big family it, was and how
hard it could be to keep up with how everyone
was related to everyone. Else this became the inspiration for
a board game Called Family. Traditions Family traditions involved a
(31:22):
set of playing, cards each of them labeled and illustrated
with a family member or a family. Relationship cards were
shuffled and dealt to the players who used sets of
three cards to fill in family relationships on a game,
board such as my mother's son is my, brother but
also more distant relationships like third and fourth. Cousins players
(31:44):
got points for each relationship they created on the, board
with different family members and relationships earning different numbers of,
points but they lost points for any cards left over
in their hand at the end of the. Game mildred
was AWARDED us patent for two three zero three two
one on this game In october of nineteen eighty and
she also trademarks the name and logo and registered the
(32:06):
copyright on the game. Rules mildred borrowed some money From
beatrice so that she could publish this game, herself selling
out of the first printing of one hundred. Copies she
followed this with another run of five hundred more copies
of the. Game she also created a braille, edition and
in nineteen eighty, two she told a reporter that her
(32:27):
dream was for her game to become as big As
monopoly and allow her to start a company of her
own that she would staff with other disabled. People On
october nineteenth of nineteen eighty, Two beatrice was AWARDED us
patent four three five four six' four to three bathroom.
Tissue holder this was a device that could attach to
(32:48):
a person's existing toilet paper holder on, the wall which
would always keep the free out of the toilet, paper
available so you didn't have to spin the roll around hunting.
For it this looked a.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Little like a short ladder with hooks at, one end
which could attach to the rod on. The holder the
free end of the toilet paper would then be threaded
through the bottom two rungs of. The Ladder on, december
thirteenth nineteen, Eighty three, Beatrice's husband jabbo died after retiring
as director Of the Boys And. Girls club he had
continued to volunteer with young People, in washington. D c
(33:22):
and in the other places where He and. Beatrice lived
there are still youth leagues and facilities in the area
named after. Him today in nineteen, Eighty four beatrice became
ill and she needed. An ambulance she was living In
the kingshill Area, Of, williamsburg virginia where She and jabo
had moved a few years before. His death she was,
(33:43):
ultimately fine but it took a while for the ambulance
to get to her because of. Traffic congestion around The
Nearby bush gardens, theme park and this prompted her to
write a letter To The Newport News daily press proposing
a solution that an emergency lane be built in the
grassy media Area of, route sixty which Ran Past. Bush
gardens she wrote that this would allow emergency vehicles to
(34:06):
respond faster and also prevent lawsuits against the county in
the amusement park if people died or lost their homes
to a fire because emergency vehicles couldn't. Get through she
handed her letter to the, EDITOR quote i am aware
that this has been recognized as a. Problem, area however
recognition solves no problems and saves.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
No lives in nineteen, Eighty seven beatrice was issued another
patent number four six nine six zero Six eight shower
wall and bathtub. Mounted backwasher this is a pad of
foam covered in terrycloth mounted to a rigid plate that
could be stuck to the shower wall with. Suction cups
(34:46):
it had a pouch for a bar of, soap quote
so that a person taking a shower or bath can
position their back or any other inaccessible area of their
body against the surface of the terry cloth or other
fabric cover by my removing the body area engaged with
the cover provide a washing or massaging function on the
surface area of. The body the fabric elements of this
(35:09):
invention were all removable so that they could. Be laundered
it's not documented anywhere whether the backwasher and the toilet
paper holder came About because beatrice was trying To make
mildred's home, more accessible but it's certainly within the realm.
Of possibility sometime after this last patent, Was awarded beatrice
also finished writing, an autobiography which she Titled It Burned
(35:32):
my body but Not My soul And to tracy's knowledge,
in mind this was. Never PUBLISHED. Mildred e smith died At,
her washington. D c Home on, january thirtieth nineteen, ninety
three at the age of. Seventy seven beatrice kept inventing
things to the rest of, her life although she didn't
patent any. Of them in, her eighties she worked on
(35:54):
a protective device for seat belts that She called nicholas
to keep the belt from biting into a. Person's neck
she said she really needed this because she was.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So short. SHOUT out i agree with HER because i
have the. Same problem some of the inventions she talked
about in the last couple of decades of her life
sound a bit more fanciful than the practical ones that
she was issued, patents on like a portable car garage
and a passenger airplane design that would eject debris away
from the passengers in the event of.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
A Crash beatrice kenner Died on, january thirteenth two thousand,
and Six At sibley Hospital, in WASHINGTON. D c at
the age of.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Ninety three various Sources Say beatrice kenner was awarded more
patents than any other black WOMAN in, us history but
that's almost impossible, to substantiate since patent applications don't include
a disclosure of a. Person's race in, some ways this
leveled the playing field for, black inventors who could file
patent applications themselves or with the help of attorneys at
(36:54):
a time when racism would have kept them from accessing.
Other institutions at the, same time the patent process was
still influenced by the same systemic patterns of discrimination as
everything else In The. United states patenting and invention still,
cost money and so did defending a patent, in court
and there's been racial bias in the courtroom for the
(37:16):
entire history Of The. United states it, is, clear Though
that Mildred and beatrice were, both creative innovative women who
both were very savvy about protecting their inventions, through, patents trademarks.
AND copyright i.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Kind of love both.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Of, them yeah they're. Pretty.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
GREAT uh i kept just stumbling onto new THINGS that i, Was,
like oh.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
THAT'S delightful.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
I also have listener mail about something, else delightful which.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Is, Pens, oh pens we. Love.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
You yeah this Came. From trish, TRISH wrote i love
listening to, your show especially the episodes about people and
TOPICS that i would never look. Into myself my favorite
shows are the ones that dig into topics that are
often considered boring to and make. Them interesting you do
that very well and make my days much. More interesting
i've developed a habit of spouting random bits of trivia. And.
(38:08):
CONVERSATIONS though i was so happy when this week's topic,
was pens even if the focus was. BALLPOINT pens i
decided to start Journaling in december of. Twenty nineteen this
turned out to be a. GOOD idea i started going
through so many, pens gelpins MOSTLY that i felt guilty
about the. Plastic WASTE when i search for something more,
(38:28):
ENVIRONMENTALLY friendly i fell down the rabbit hole of fountain pen.
Collection culture you can spend a lot of money on.
One pen luckily, for me you can also get some
decent ones for less than twenty. FIVE dollars i grew
up down the road from one of the main cross
pen Factories In, rhode island and my dad carried one
of their fountain pens every day for as LONG as i.
(38:50):
Can remember when he retired a little early in, twenty
twenty he gave me that pen EVERY time i, use
it which is pretty much EVERY day i think. OF
him a good fountain can last. For generations as, a
tip if you don't live near one of the few
places that still specialize in fountain pens and have trouble WITH,
the nib a jeweler can often help. Fix it, pun intended.
(39:12):
Not sorry thank you again for finding and sharing all
the interesting things behind. Everyday topics as a, pet tax
here is My, dog penny who seems to have melted in,
the heat and my feisty but Dumbed, turtle gulliver who
sometimes tries to get off her rock in the wrong
direction and needs to. Be. Rescued trish thank you, So
much trish for this email and for. These pictures we.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Have a picture of.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
A turtle this turtle appears to, be sideways not quite
the direction that the turtle should. Be oriented, and, also
yes a puppy dog doing the thing where they stretch
out with as much of them, as possible touching the
(39:59):
floor where. It's cool the. Swoop yep thank you So
much trish for. This Email maybe i'll give fountain pens
another go someday and SEE if i can find one
with a nib that does not feel unpleasant to me to,
write with because that was my big. Stumbling block if
(40:20):
you would like to send us a note about this
or any, other podcast We're At history podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com and you can subscribe to our show on
the iHeartRadio app and. Anywhere else too late to get.
Your podcasts stuff you Missed In history class is a Production.
(40:40):
Of iHeartRadio for more Podcasts, from iHeartRadio visit the, iHeartRadio App,
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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