Did you know Raleigh was home to one of the most prolific female inventors ever? Born in Raleigh in 1887, Beulah Louise Henry is credited with 100+ inventions and 49 US patents during her lifetime and was known as “Lady Edison.”
Throughout the 1920s, Henry patented items like the vacuum-sealed ice cream freezer — at just 25 years old — the first bobbin-less sewing machine, an umbrella with interchangeable covers, a clock to help children learn how to tell time, and over 100 more inventions, many of which were to improve women’s quality of life.
Henry did all of this without an engineering degree and told the New York Times in 1962, “If necessity is the mother of invention, then resourcefulness is the father.”
Henry was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 alongside famed innovators like the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, and Steve Jobs. Henry is remembered among the greats in Raleigh history — so where’s her statue?
