Women Inventors

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.5 billion.

In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs - a real-life Tony Stark - and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new makers.

 Madam C.J. Walker wasn't just an inventor. She was also a political activist and businesswoman.  Young listeners will discover that she was not only fought for civil rights, but became one of the most successful African-American business owners ever. 

Until recently, history has tended to highlight male inventors—but why not women inventors as well? And where are the women inventors of color? Why have so many of these women not found their rightful places in history? Thankfully, over the last few decades—with increasing opportunities to shatter the “glass ceiling”—women have begun to achieve equal footing with men in careers and in salaries.

Explore the life and achievements of Elizabeth Blackwell, America's first woman doctor.

When Temple Grandin was born, her parents knew that she was different. It wasn’t until years later that she was diagnosed with autism, a brain disorder that makes communication difficult. Today, Dr. Temple Grandin is a scientist and professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Her career has revolutionized the livestock industry - each year, half the cattle in the United States are handled in cruelty-free facilities she designed. She is also a passionate advocate for autism, using her experience to prove that people with this disorder can have “normal” lives.

In Wonder Women, author Sam Maggs tells the stories of the brilliant, brainy, and totally rad women in history who broke barriers as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers, and inventors. Also features interviews with real-life women in STEM careers, an extensive bibliography, and a guide to women-centric science and technology organizations - all to show the many ways the geeky girls of today can help to build the future.

The protectors. They'll risk their lives to protect the woman in jeopardy. But will they risk their hearts? When the ex-wife scientist Colt Jarvis assumed left him for another man returns, his attraction to her flares. But he can’t trust her. During their brief marriage, she kept way too many secrets. She still does. For the past year, they’ve only seen each other during her visits to their children. Fiercely independent security expert Mirabella Jarvis didn’t choose to leave her husband and children. An accident followed by years of amnesia weren’t part of her plan. Slowly, she’s...

London 1884. Electricity pioneer Simon Borthwick lights up Victorian London with a stunning illuminations display - then shoots himself in a hansom cab. Plucky Fleet Street reporter Penny Green witnesses the inventor's death and suspects the clue to his suicide lies in a mysterious letter he left behind. But can she persuade Inspector James Blakely of Scotland Yard that a crime has been committed? Borthwick isn't the only person who died that day, and Penny soon encounters a shadowy world which the police can't get close to.

Madam C. J. Walker invented a line of African American hair products and cosmetics that led her to become the first self-made female millionaire.

They say that the moor has eyes. It is 1890, and the windswept moors hold dark secrets. Chloe Sullivan is an amateur inventor whose holiday takes a dark turn when her friend and colleague, one of the few female mechanical experts in the British Empire, is murdered. A black mechanical hound roams the moors, but could it have killed a woman? And what secrets are concealed within the dark family manor? Accompanied by her naturalist husband and clockwork cat, Chloe is determined to see her friend’s killer found. But some secrets have a terrible cost.

Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is a celebration of unheard and under-heard women’s history. Within this book you’ll meet nearly 1000 women whose names deserve to be better known: from the Mothers of Invention and the trailblazing women at the Bar; Warrior Queens and Pirate Commanders; the women who dedicated their lives to the natural world or to medicine; those women of courage who resisted and fought for what they believed in to defend their families, their culture and their countries; to the unsung heroes of stage, screen and stadium.

Before Mary Kay, Martha Stewart, and Joy Mangano, there was Brownie Wise, the charismatic Tupperware executive who converted postwar optimism into a record-breaking sales engine powered by American housewives. In Life of the Party, Bob Kealing offers the definitive portrait of Wise, a plucky businesswoman who divorced her alcoholic husband, started her own successful business, and eventually caught the eye of Tupperware inventor Earl Tupper, whose plastic containers were collecting dust on store shelves.

I do not know how many people plan to divorce after getting married. Well, I didn't. That's why the reality of an impending divorce and a feeling of failing had me in its grip for years during a physically and emotionally abusive marriage. Even more, it was a foreign concept to me to seek a way out of it, because as a Christian, divorce did not seem to be a right alternative or choice. In this audiobook, I invite you to explore with me my struggles, mental health, confusion, and ultimately my journey into clarity and freedom, choice, and mental well-being.

Rouge is a sexy, glamorous journey into the rivalry of the pioneers of powder, mascara, and rouge. This fast-paced audiobook examines the lives, loves, and sacrifices of the visionaries who invented the modern cosmetics industry: Josiah Herzenstein, born in a Polish Jewish shtlel, the entrepreneur who transforms herself into a global style icon and the richest woman in the world, Josephine Herz; Constance Gardiner, her rival, the ultimate society woman, whose deepest secret threatens everything; and more.

Orphaned Leonora lives on a remote island, spending her days making crazy cool inventions. When a strange boy called Jack washes up on an inflatable lobster and reveals that evil Uncle Luther has been stealing her inventions and selling them on the mainland, it begins a laugh-out-loud adventure - complete with a furry otter, a singing sea captain and a very secret society....

Sarah E. Goode was one of the first African American women to get a United States patent. Working in her husband's furniture store, she recognized the need for a multi-use bed, and through hard work, ingenuity, and determination, invented her unique cupboard bed. She built more than a piece of furniture. She built a life far away from slavery - a life where her sweet dreams could come true.

Let’s talk about the 19th century as a time when much of our necessities were answered with technology. Let’s talk about the 19th century with answers to economic riddles. This biography book for fifth graders features the likes of The Wright Brothers, Samuel F. Morse, Louis Braille, Elijah McCoy, Madam CJ Walker, and Alexander Graham Bell. Listen to their stories. Begin today.

Have you been wanting to know more about the significant impact black women had on the world? The Woman Who Invented Weaving is a fascinating audiobook that contains a catalog of several notable inventors and inventions by black women, which include the invention of the bathroom tissue holder, pastry fork, and ironing board, among others.