These Female Inventors Inspired Me To Write Children’s Books

By Emberli Pridham, Author of “If Not You, Then Who?” Children’s Book Series

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As a mother, nothing is more joyful than seeing my daughter and her friends explore their creativity. As young girls, they see the sky as the limit in terms of what the future holds and they’re excited to learn about anything and everything.

The following amazing, inventive women inspired me to write children’s books about inventing … I hope you’ll share their stories with the children in your life - both boys and girls - to show them the incredible things women can do.

Hedy was an Austrian American actress and scientist who pioneered the technology for spread spectrum communications, the key to many wireless communications today such as WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth.

In 1943, Hedy received a patent for an idea of a radio signaling device that allowed for “frequency hopping,” a means of changing radio frequencies to keep enemies from decoding messages. The technology was originally invented to defeat the German Nazis, but later became essential technology for maintaining security in military communications and cell phones. The technology wasn’t instantly recognized as useful, but decades later, as technology became a more essential part of society, her advances were recognized through the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award in 1997. That same year, Hedy became the first female to receive the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, which is considered the "Oscars" of inventing.

Erna is a pioneer for women in the field of computer technology, working for Bell Telephone as a senior technical associate for 32 years long before the smartphone era. Before Bell Telephone was broken up into smaller companies by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1984, the company managed all of the telephone communications for the United States and Canada. The high call volume coming through the Bell Communications call center caused the electronic relays to freeze up. Using her knowledge of symbolic logic and feedback theory, Erna created a program that allowed the call center to control the frequency of calls during different times of the day. Her system, Stored Program Control, gave computers the ability to adjust the call center's acceptance rate automatically, greatly reducing the overloading problem. As a result of her invention, she became the first woman supervisor of a technical department at Bell Labs. Her invention revolutionized modern communication and is still used in telecommunication equipment in the 21st century.

In 1938, at their popular restaurant Toll House Inn in Easton, Massachusetts, Ruth made a sweet invention: the chocolate chip cookie recipe. The original cookie recipe involved an even ration of white sugar and brown sugar, but Ruth felt there could be a chocolate variation made by adding melted baker’s chocolate to the dough. When she realized they were out of baker’s chocolate, Ruth found what she thought was a similar replacement: semi-sweet chocolate bars given to her by Andrew Nestlé of The Nestlé Company. She chopped the bar into small bits and sprinkled them into the dough. After pulling the cookies out of the oven, Ruth realized the chocolate had not completely melted into the dough to create a chocolate cookie. Instead, the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie we know today was born. As customers continuously requested the cookies, word spread, kicking off a national craze for chocolate chip cookies.

I truly enjoy teaching my daughter about the amazing women and girls that have paved the way in creating new and exciting tools in a world where most of the inventors and creators she sees are boys. In fact, I enjoy this so much that I was inspired to write my own children's books, designed to inspire kids of all ages to dream up their own inventions.

Written for kids, but full of educational information, children’s books are the key to teaching our kids and inspiring them to think and invent things themselves. I hope you encourage your children to explore and be creative through reading like I do with mine.