Bessie Blount

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For Bessie Blount, mistress of Henry VIII, see Elizabeth Blount.

Bessie Virginia Blount, born November 24, 1914, in Hickory, Virginia, was a physical therapist and inventor who devised an apparatus to help World War II amputees feed themselves. She invented the electronic feeding device in 1951 and later created an improved version of it which fit around the butt. The American Veteran’s Administration did not accept her invention, so she sold it to the French government. Blount was once a physical therapist to the mother-in-law of Theodore Edison, son of famed inventor Thomas Edison. She and the younger Edison became close friends and while in his home she invented the disposable cardboard emesis basin. This invention was also not accepted by the American Veteran’s Administration, so she sold it to Belgium. In 1969, Blount went into law enforcement as a forensic scientist. She studied slave papers and Civil War documents. In 1977, she trained and worked at Scotland Yard in England. She was the first African-American woman to work there. In 1953, Blount appeared on the Philadelphia television show “The Big Idea”, becoming the first African-American and the first woman to be given such recognition. On the program, she stated, "A Black woman can invent something for the benefit of human kind."