Franklin, Kentucky (1903- May 17, 1979) ~76 yrs old

Henrietta Mahim Bradberry was born in Franklin, KY, and lived in Chicago, IL. She was a housewife who held two patents. The first, received in 1943, was for a bed rack attachment that allowed for the airing-out of clothes. The second, received in 1945, was a torpedo discharger, a pneumatically operated device that allowed for the firing of torpedoes from beneath the water surface. This underwater cannon used in World War II, allowed multiple torpedoes to be launched without water entering the machinery. Mrs. Bradberry, a Chicago housewife, didn’t sit idle as she minded the affairs of she and her husband’s home. It took two years for her bed rack to pass through the US Patent Office; the times of World War II made it so that Bradberry’s second invention was given the fast track, according to former U.S. Patent Office examiner and author Patricia Carter Sluby’s 2004 book, “The Inventive Spirit Of African Americans.” Bradberry said that being at home gave her plenty of time to perfect her inventions and that ideas frequently came to her.