Thesis

During the 1940s, actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system to block the Axis powers from interfering with Allied torpedoes in World War II. Lamar’s scientific talents were vastly overlooked and she was not taken seriously as she was stereotyped as a beautiful Hollywood actress. Overall, Lamar’s work helped break military technological barriers during wartime, as well as challenged the gender barriers of her time. Her invention of frequency hopping led to spread spectrum, which would later be incorporated into wireless communications technology, such as GPS, Wifi, and Bluetooth.

“It blew me away there was this woman who was brilliant, but celebrated for her face and not for her mind."

-Alexandra Dean, filmmaker of the documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story”, Global Citizen interview, April 2017

“2018 bronze commemorative medal", Jewish-American Hall of Fame

"Hedy had remarkable success at making the transition from Austrian theater and film to U.S theater and film. Very few of the many Jewish or anti-Nazi theater and film people were able to do so; the cultural differences were simply too great. Hedy was a highly intelligent and somewhat ruthless person, and of course beautiful, which both helped and, as she said, cursed her."

-Personal Interview, Amerian historian Richard Rhodes, May 2020