Shalah Leckie

I did have a little trouble finding sources for some parts of the paper but once I found all the sources I was able to write the paper with minimal difficulty. I am actually really happy with the paper I wrote and really enjoyed learning about Stephanie Kwolek. Another small problem I had was that I couldn’t figure out how to use the SafeAssign plagiarism check on Canvas so I used a free online plagiarism checker. The biggest problem I had wasn’t really related to the paper but was the speed of my computer. Everything took me way longer than it should have just because my poor computer is ancient and slower than molasses.

After a few setbacks in trying to find a replacement person for my Cultural Research topic I finally found Stephanie Kwolek who invented Kevlar. The first thing I did after finding information on her was to write some questions I hadn’t yet found sufficient answers to. I emailed one of the OSU librarians but have not heard back from her yet. The questions I sent to her were: what technology was available to women in the 1960-1970’s and how common was that technology in homes? How many female chemists are there now compared to the 60’s? Is it easier for women to enter the chemistry field today than in the 60’s? I do know some of the answers to these questions but I was wanting to find more detailed in-depth answers and that is what I hope the librarian can help me with.

I also used the Answerland chat service where I told the librarian I was looking for answers to the following questions: what technology/tools did Stephanie Kwolek use in creating Kevlar? What methods were used in creating Kevlar? and I repeated a question from earlier and asked How many women were employed as chemists in the 1960-1970’s? I liked that this was a 24/7 service but it was a little hard because there was large amounts of time where I was waiting for a response because the librarian was helping two other people at the same time. She gave me links to two research database guides within OSU that I hadn’t even realized existed. Although these are a nice place to find all the databases related to women studies and chemistry it didn’t really help me get answers to the questions, but I will look into the databases further as this week continues.

The research sources I found most helpful was OSU Library, EBSCO Host, and Encyclopedia Britannica Women in Science.

Hedy Lamarr who was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler to Jewish parents was best known for her acting career. She was born on November 9th, 1914 in Vienna, Austria. She started learning European languages at the age of four was also given ballet and piano lessons. As a teen, Hedy studied for a short time in Berlin where she had her first debut in theater in a Max Reinhardt production.

In 1933, Hedy married her first husband Fritz Mandl. Mandl was a weapons manufacturer who took Hedy with him for business effectively stopping her acting career during their marriage. Hedy reportedly learned a lot about technology during her husband’s business meetings. The knowledge she gained about technology only fueled the engineering interest she had gained from her father when he would take her for walks and explain how things worked. In 1937, Hedy left her marriage and escaped to the United States.

It was during World War II in 1941, when Hedy and a musician, George Antheil, partnered together to develop a way to frequency hop radio waves. Hedy was able to use some of the knowledge she gained from her first marriage to develop a communication system for torpedoes to help the United States Navy. In 1942, Hedy and Antheil were able to get a patent for their invention. The communication system used frequency switching to secretly guide torpedoes. The Navy felt it would be too difficult and too costly to develop this technology. Hedy gave the patent to the Navy and stayed quiet even when others began developing her technology. It was fifty plus years later when Hedy was finally acknowledged for her frequency hopping technology. Her technological break-through was what finally led to what we know today as WiFi.

Hedy and I come from very different cultures. She grew up Jewish in Austria and lived through two world wars. However, I grew up in the United States during a time of “relative” world peace. It would have been amazing to interview Hedy Lamarr if she died at the age of 86 on January 19th, 2000. If she were still living I would like to ask her about her inventions and what it was like to be Jewish during the beginning of Nazi Germany.