Beulah Henry was the ‘go-to’ inventor of her era

Beulah Louise Henry of Raleigh, N.C., who lived from 1887-1973, was hailed as the “mother of invention” by Our State magazine in its September 2021 edition. 

That was a grand tribute to the woman who was inducted posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.

 Beulah Louise Henry was one of the “favorite subjects” of the late Dr. Lenwood Gray Davis, a native of Beaufort, N.C., who became a distinguished author and history professor at Winston-Salem (N.C.) State University 

Writing for the North Carolina Museum of History’s Tar Heel Junior Historian magazine in 2006, Dr. Davis said: “Of all the women inventors in the United States, the one who invented more items than any other probably was Beulah Louise Henry.” 

She was credited with about 110 inventions and received 49 patents during her career. 

She revolutionized the toy industry with a baby doll. At first glance, 

most folks thought the doll was real.

What Dr. Davis said he remembered most about Beulah Louise is that “she spent most of her life proving men wrong about her ideas.” 

Beulah Louise Henry came from good, spunky stock. Her parents were Col. Walter R. Henry and Beulah Williamson Henry, who were both artistically inclined. 

Beulah Louise was a direct descendant of Patrick Henry of Virginia, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was the American colonist who famously declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” 

In 1909, Beulah Louise enrolled in college in Charlotte, N.C., studying at both the North Carolina Presbyterian College for Women (now Queens University) and Elizabeth College. 

By 1912, she had finished her classes and was successful in attaining her first patent for an ice cream freezer with a vacuum seal. It was a device that allowed one to make ice cream using ice, salt, milk and sugar without all the hand-cranking that was required previously. 

Dr. Davis said that in 1913, Beulah Louise introduced “one of her most well-known inventions – a parasol, or umbrella, that came with various snap-on covers. Users could change covers to match their outfits.”

 

One Charlotte-based manufacturer told Beulah Louise that such an umbrella was impossible to make. “She didn’t believe him and went on to prove him wrong,” Dr. Davis said. 

“It was just her nature,” Dr. Davis added. She said: “I invent because I cannot help it – new things just thrust themselves on me.” 

Beulah Louise moved to New York City in 1919 and set up one company to manufacture the umbrella products and another to serve as her laboratory. She employed mechanics, model makers and draftsmen to turn her ideas into prototypes. 

“I cannot make up my mind whether it is a drawback or an advantage to be so utterly ignorant of mechanics as I am,” she once revealed. “I know nothing about mechanical terms, and I am afraid I do make it rather difficult for the draftsmen to whom I explain my ideas, but in the factories where I am known, they are exceedingly patient with me because they seem to have a lot of faith in my inventiveness.” 

Indeed. By the end of the 1930s, Beulah Louise Henry had so many patents, she didn’t know what to do. It was symbolic of her diverse interests and multiple talents. 

Beulah Louise never married. She had a wide variety of other interests including writing and painting, but she was labeled by the news media as “Lady Edison.” 

It was intended as a positive compliment, singling her out as a female peer of inventor Thomas Edison.

 We’ll need to delve into that.