While doing research for their best-selling book “Mothers of Invention,” Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek were amazed at what they call a “strange historical amnesia” regarding female inventors and their accomplishments throughout the ages.

From the resources available, it appeared that women had not contributed much to the advancement of science and technology, and yet the authors knew this was not so. Their book “Patently Female: From AZT to TV Dinners, Stories of Women Inventors and Their Breakthrough Ideas” (Wiley, 240 pages, $24.95) seeks to set the record straight.

Devoting a few sentences, paragraphs or pages to each inventor, the authors show how the products of female ingenuity are often those we can’t imagine doing without. Industrial diamonds, the drip coffee maker, the material that makes bulletproof vests bulletproof, laser cataract surgery, the paper bag, vacuum canning, disposable diapers, and the AIDS drugs AZT and Protease Inhibitors are only a few of the contributions women have made to everyday life.

Each woman’s story is inspiring, but Vare and Ptacek have a knack for choosing anecdotes that bring the inventor’s trials and triumphs to life for the reader. Take the story of Bette Nesmith Graham: She was a single mother in Texas supporting her young son Michael on a secretary’s salary when the electric typewriter was introduced. Fearful that she would lose her job because of her poor typing skills, she mixed white tempera paint in a bottle and took it and her paint brush to the office. Voila! Liquid Paper was born. The flourish is that Michael went on to become a teen idol as a member of The Monkees.

Such stories engage the reader on a personal level and remind us of the changes undergone by American society regarding gender discrimination during the past century. By today’s standards, it seems outrageous that Laura Scudder, who introduced potato chips in sealed bags and food freshness dating, was initially refused insurance for her delivery truck in the 1920s because agents didn’t believe a woman could be depended upon to pay the premiums.

Even as late as 1957, the same year Scudder sold Scudder Foods for $6 million (Borden bought it 30 years later for $100 million), RCA patent director C.D. Tuska, author of “Inventors and Invention,” wrote:

“Most of our inventors are of the male sex. Why is the percentage of women so low? I’m sure I do not know, except the Good Lord intended them to be mothers. They produce the inventors and help rear them, and that should be sufficient.”

“Patently Female” illuminates a history of human achievement eclipsed by misconceptions about the female mind and the very nature of invention.

Despite the fact that many an early female innovator had to file her patent under the name of her husband or her male collaborator, the advancements women have made can be unearthed by those with the determination to do so.

The authors cite the flurry of books on the subject that have been published since “Mothers of Invention” and have done their part to bring to light an essential piece of history as well as “her-story.”