Beulah Louise Henry

Beulah Louise Henry, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006, was a prolific inventor known as “Lady Edison.” She was granted 49 patents for various inventions, including toys, household items, and improvements to sewing machines and typewriters. Her first patent was for a vacuum-sealed ice cream freezer. She also created a parasol with removable snap-on covers, which she sold through a company she founded. The commercial success of the parasol enabled Henry to set up a workshop and hire draftsmen to pursue her many other ideas for inventions. Henry had an unconventional way of thinking, which fascinated the press. She visualized solutions to problems and associated color, images, and texture with words, names, and sounds. She is thought to have had synesthesia, a neurological condition where when one sense is stimulated, an involuntary response in another sense occurs. The chapter details her vacuum-sealed ice cream freezer, toy cow that dispensed milk, and protograph, an attachment to a typewriter used for duplicating without carbon paper.