Beulah Louise Henry

@Women Inventors, Birthday and Personal Life

Beulah Louise Henry was an American inventor nicknamed "Lady Edison" for her many inventions

Feb 11, 1887

AmericanInventors & DiscoverersAquarius Celebrities
Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: February 11, 1887
  • Died on: January 1, 1973
  • Nationality: American
  • Famous: Discoverers, Lady Edison, Women Inventors, Inventors & Discoverers
  • Universities:
    • Elizabeth College
    • Virginia
  • Birth Place: Raleigh
  • Gender: Female

Beulah Louise Henry born at

Raleigh

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Birth Place

Beulah Louise Henry never married. She had a wide variety of interests including writing and painting. She was also active in the Audubon Society, the League for Animals, and the Museum of Natural History.

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Personal Life

She lived an active life till the very end and died in 1973.

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Personal Life

Beulah Louise Henry was born on February 11, 1887, in North Carolina, as the daughter of Walter R. and Beulah Henry. Both her parents were artistically inclined: her father was an authority on art while her mother was an artist. She was a direct descendant of Patrick Henry, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.

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Childhood & Early Life

It is believed that Beulah had mild Synesthesia, a condition where the mind will assign sensory attributes to other senses, for instance associating colors to sounds. This is a condition often found in artistic and creative people.

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Childhood & Early Life

Bright and inventive, she started tinkering with things as a young child and loved to create new objects.

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Childhood & Early Life

She studied at the North Carolina Presbyterian College from 1909 to 1912.

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Childhood & Early Life

It is said that she began inventing as a child but it was only when she was in her mid-twenties that she first applied for a patent. Her first one, in 1912, was for a vacuum ice cream freezer. Two other patents followed in quick succession the next year: one for a hand bag and the other for an umbrella.

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Later Years

The umbrella was a major early invention; it came with snap-on detachable cloth covers in a variety of colors. Following the success of her early inventions, she moved to New York City in 1919 where she found a huge market for her umbrellas.

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Later Years

In New York City, she lived in hotel apartments and continued designing newer inventions. The rights to her popular umbrella cover invention sold for $50,000 which enabled her to set up her own laboratory. She appointed mechanics, model makers, and draftsmen to turn her ideas into prototypes.

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Later Years

She founded two companies: the Henry Umbrella and Parasol Company, and the B. L. Henry Company of New York. Throughout the 1920s, she was awarded many new patents including the ones for a spring-limbed doll and sponges that held soap in the middle. She also designed the machine that produced the sponges.

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Later Years

She eventually turned her attention towards machines and made many improvements to sewing machines and typewriters during the 1930s and 1940s. The patents she received in this period include the ones for a double-chain stitch sewing machine, a feeding and aligning device for typewriters, a bobbin-less sewing machine, number of children´s toys, and another typewriter attachment for duplicating documents.

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Later Years

Among her several popular inventions was an umbrella with a variety of different colored snap-on cloth covers which she patented in1924. The users of the umbrella could co-ordinate the color of the umbrella cover with their clothing. The product was a huge success and helped her earn considerable wealth with which she could establish her own laboratory.

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Major Works