Inventor Beulah Louise Henry’s unstoppable rise to becoming ‘Lady Edison’
Get the Popular Science daily newsletterđź’ˇ Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Beulah Louise Henry was just nine years old when she came up with her first invention in 1896, a device that allowed a man to tip his hat without ever putting down his newspaper. By her death in 1973, at the age of 85, she’d come up with so many more—a doll with eyes that changed color with the press of a button, a sewing machine without a bobbin (a threaded spool that slowed down work because it had to be frequently refilled), a clock designed to help kids learn to tell time, and others—that the press even dubbed Henry “Lady Edison.” Her ideas, she once told a reporter, were “messages from a guiding spirit.” Beulah Louise Henry’s early life Henry grew up a daughter of fortune in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her father Walter was a prominent lawyer and orator. Her mother, who was also named Beulah—a common tradition in the late 19th century—was a homemaker and the daughter …
