Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American political activist and lifelong champion of civil rights for Black, Latino, Native American and Asian-American communities. Kochiyama was born in 1921 in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrant parents Seiichi Nakahara and Tsuyako Nakahara. Kochiyama grew up in a predominantly white neighbourhood and became the first female student body …
Today’s Illustrated Women in History is a written submission by James Purvis. Hertha Ayrton was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor. She is best known for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water. I wasn’t aware of Hertha Ayrton until last month google commemorated her 162nd birthday with a google doodle. …
Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century.” She is credited with bringing “the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.” Rich was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Arnold …
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, feminist and poet best known for her novel Little Women. Alcott was born in 1812 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, and from a young age she would write stories which she and her sisters would act out for friends. Her father briefly …
Florynce Kennedy was an American lawyer, activist, civil rights advocate, lecturer and one of the pioneers of second-wave feminism. Kennedy was born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up in a mostly white neighbourhood, and as a young child was arrested as the police didn’t believe she lived in the neighbourhood. On one occasion, …
Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist who is best known for her paintings of magnified flowers, animal skulls, and New Mexico desert landscapes. She has been recognised as the “Mother of American modernism”. O’Keeffe was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She grew up on a dairy farm, and showed a talent for art …
Nichelle Nichols is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She is best known for starring as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek, making her one of the first African American female characters to play a role other than a servant. She was a role model for female women of colour, and inspired many to join …
Camilla Collett was a feminist writer from Norway. She wrote the first Norwegian novel dealing critically with the position of women and is known as the “first Norwegian feminist.” Collett was born in 1813 in Kristiansand, Norway to Nicolai Wergeland, a noted theologian, politician, and composer in his time, and Alette née Thaulow. At the …
Joyce Banda is a Malawian politician who served as vice president (2009–12) and president (2012–14) of Malawi. She was the first woman to serve as head of state anywhere in Southern Africa. Banda was born in 1950 in Malemia, a village in the Zomba District of Nyasaland (now Malawi). After completing school, Banda went on …
Sophie Taeuber-Arp was a Swiss artist, painter, sculptor, textile designer and dancer. She was one of the foremost figures of the Dada art movement, and is considered one of the most important artists of concrete art and geometric abstraction of the 20th century. Taeuber-Arp was born in 1889 in Davos, Switzerland. She studied art at …