A Southern belle takes on New York and changes the world with a notebook and a sharp mind.
Before the age of electronics, there was the age of mechanical ingenuity—and Beulah Louise Henry was its queen. Born in the post-Reconstruction South, Henry defied expectations placed on women of her era to become one of America's most prolific inventors, earning the nickname "Lady Edison."
This episode traces Henry's extraordinary journey, from a curious child dismantling dolls in Raleigh to a savvy businesswoman licensing dozens of patents in 1920s and 30s New York. Discover the elegant simplicity behind her inventions—like the vacuum ice cream freezer, the Protograph typewriter attachment, and the revolutionary Miss Illusion doll—and learn how she pioneered the business of invention by focusing on licensing and royalties.
The story is one of grace and grit, detailing how Henry navigated a male-dominated world, survived the Great Depression, and strategically leveraged media attention to prove that imagination has no gender. She was more than an inventor; she was a quiet revolutionary whose work still influences the daily objects we use today.
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