No one else ignored: Beela Henry, inventor with an endless imagination

This is part of the article UnseenA series of clarifers about the notable people starting in 1851, became unrestricted in time.

At the end of the 19th century, when Baylah Henry was a child, he had dreamed of ways to make life easier. This impulse will eventually drive him to secure dozens of patents and earn him a surname: Lady Edison.

When he died in the early 1970s, he organized a far more patent than any other woman, according to the United States patent and trademark office, and in 2006 he was included in the National Inventor Hall of Fame for his contribution to technological innovation.

“I invent because I can’t help it,” he often said. “New things just insist on myself.”

Her first prototype, when she was 9 years old, was for a mechanism that allowed a man to tip a passer to tip his cap while holding a newspaper.

Darshan kept coming. In 1912, when she was in college, she received her first patent (number 1,037,762) for the ice cream manufacturer, who worked with minimal ice, at that time there was something in low supply. It was not a commercial success, but he did not stop her from dreaming of other innovations.

Patent number 1,037,762

‘Ice Cream Freezer’

Anything and everything seemed to be his interest: toys, typewritors, sewing machines, coffee utensils, hair curler, opener, mailing envelopes. Her achievements were more notable because she had no knowledge of mechanics and lacks technical terminology to describe what she was trying to do.

Working out of a series of hotel suits – a reporter who visited, stated that he saw a boudor more than the place of business – he saw – he hired model makers, draftsman and patent lawyers to realize their philosophy. Sometimes he sold his ideas to the manufacturers who then applied for their patent.

Henry could see the prepared product in his head, he said, “clearly as you see a book or a book or a flower or a flower in front of you.” His challenge was to clearly communicate that vision so that other people could bring it to reality.

“I say to the engineers, I create more like this, and they say to me,” Miss Henry, it can’t work possibly, “he told Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel in 1965.” And I tell them, ‘I don’t know what it will work but I am looking at it,’ and so they make it and do it. ,

Bahulah Lewis Henry was born on September 28, 1887 in Rale, NC, Walter R. Happened in Henry, an art connoisseur and collector who was active in local democratic politics. Her mother, Beela (Williamson) Henry, was an artist. His brother, Peeton, was a lyricist.

Henry claimed the 23rd President of the United States and the revolutionary war hero from Patrick Henry to descend from Benjamin Harrison.

In the interview, he said that his ability to inventions may be affected by a neurological position called Cynthesia, which is associated with unrelated senses – some sounds or tastes can take into account special colors, for example. “I have a million percent,” she will say.

After graduating from Elizabeth College, in Charlotte, Nekan, she along with her mother moved to New York City to pursue her inventable career.

One idea included a parasol with a snap-on cover in different colors that could be replaced to match a woman’s organization. It was not an easy sale.

Patent nose. 1,492,725 and 1,593,494

‘Parsol’ and ‘Runner Shield Attachment’

One after the other, experts said to him, “This cannot be done,” he was said to have said in Rale news and supervisor in 1923. “But I knew that this could be done.”

The final result described as “a miracle for smart milly” in the press was so popular that it established Henry Umbrella and Parsol Company, so that he could create and marketing its construction. Lord & Taylor displayed parsols in his windows, and they were sold by thousands.

For some time, Henry put his energy in the children’s toys, mainly reinforcing the doll. He used springs and tubes to kick them, eyelid and cry; He placed a radio inside one. Her most popular composition was Miss Illusion Doll, with eyes to match her wig. He also created a luxurious toy cow called Milka-Moo, which spread milk and had a secret compartment for a bar of soap.

Later, she turned to the typewriter. 10 out of the respective patents, the most impressive was perhaps “protrife” (number 1,874,749), an attachment that produced several copies of a document without carbon paper.

He will “just see something,” Henry Said“And think, ‘is a better way to do this,” and the idea comes to me. “

In 1941, he took a long look at the sewing machines and invented the double chain stitch sewing machine (number 2,230,896), which worked without bobins that the seamstress had to stop and change from time to time.

He also found a way to make cooking easier. For years, he said, “Percoller on the coffee pot said to me,” Do something with me, “But I didn’t know what. And then one day when I was a roasted, I knew what I had to do with that percolaor.”

She left: “I worked on a device that percol the juice into a roster and baffles the meat continuously in itself.” He received a patent for this in 1962.

Reporters depicted her in reinforced words: he was “a magnificent, commanding figure,” a noted; “Stylish gown,” said another – “happily, almost dramatically feminine” and “more like an opera star than a study scientist.”

Those who went to work in their hotel room often whisper and referred to her pink lampshade or large telescope, which she had placed near a window so that she could stare at the night sky. Then there were pets: many times he placed small turtles, a paracate, a tropical oriol, several pigeons and cocktails, and a cat named.

Henry was active in the American Museum of Natural History, National Audbon Society, New York Women’s League for Animals and New York Microscopical Society, other organizations. He never married.

His far-flung motivations were a mystery to his mother, who lived with him with a long time.

In 1923, her mother said, “I don’t know what she has to make,” she wakes up at night.

Henry offered a mysterious explanation for his compulsion.

“I have come to believe in soul control,” he told the news tribun in 1939, Tribune in the wash. “And I am sure that the thoughts coming to my mind in the early hours of the morning are a message from a guiding spirit.”

She was 85 when she died in February 1973, with her 49th and final patent – its nature is lost over time – pending.