Educating Genius...A Historical Research Project Companion Blog

  Guest Post by Kate Jakubowski The actress known for being the most beautiful woman in the world was never satisfied. Over the course of her life, she married 6 times, published a best-selling memoir she didn’t write and had a patent for a technology that would change the world rejected by the US Navy. Throughout her film career, she was cast in roles where she served as the romantic foil to a much-better paid male lead, and when she produced a few movies that failed financially, she never returned to the box office again. She was once quoted as saying “any woman can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand there and look stupid.” [1] Hedy Lamarr was many things in her life, but perhaps “misunderstood” is the best description. If audiences had only looked beyond the women she played on the screen, they would’ve discovered a brilliant, creative genius. Born in Vienna in 1914, Lamarr was fascinated from a young age by how things worked. Her father inspired young Hedy when he t...

Guest post by Kate Jakubowski In Finnish, the word sisu is a word denoting that someone has the bravery and strength to persevere—they have literal guts to achieve a goal. [1] Throughout the past century, there have been many gutsy women: Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts; Mary McLeod Bethune, an advisor to FDR who played a key role in the demographic transition of the Democratic party; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Supreme Court Justice. But I would argue that these women didn’t just have guts—they had grit. Facing gender, race, or even pregnancy discrimination, these women overcame obstacles to become trailblazers, advocates, and icons, and have inspired the next generation of ambitious young girls. Popularized by psychologist Angela Duckworth in a TED talk and explored further in her book with the same name, grit is “passion and perseverance for long term goals.” [2] She divides grit into four key traits: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. [3] The wom...