Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was a Nigerian teacher, feminist and political leader who was the leading advocate of women’s rights in her country during the first half of the 20th century. Ransome-Kuti was born Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas in 1900 in Abeokuta, Egbaland (now Nigeria). She became the first female student at the Abeokuta Grammar School, …
Elizabeth Raffald was an English businesswoman, best known for her 1769 book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Raffald was born Elizabeth Whitaker in 1733 in Doncaster, England. Her father, John Whittaker was a schoolteacher and because of this, Raffald and her sisters were given the rare opportunity (for girls at the time) to learn to read …
Dorothy Hodgkin OM FRS was a British biochemist who developed protein crystallography. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for her determination of the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12. She is one of the pioneering scientists who worked in the field of X-ray crystallography studies of biomolecules. Hodgkin was born in 1910 in …
Mae Jemison is an American physician and NASA astronaut. She became the first African American woman to travel in space in 1992, when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison was born in 1956 in Decatur, Alabama. At the age of three, Jemison’s family moved to Chicago so that she and her …
Queen Nzinga Mbande was a 17th-century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in Angola. She fought fearlessly to resist the Portuguese who were attempting to colonise the area at the time. Nzinga was born in 1583 to Ngola (King) Kiluanji and Kangela. She was named Nzinga because her umbilical …
Dr. Justina Ford was an American physician who become the first female African American physician licensed to practice in Denver, Colorado, challenging and overcoming gender and racial barriers to succeed in her medical career. She practiced gynaecology, obstetrics, and paediatrics from her home for half a century. Ford was born in 1871 in Knoxville, Illinois. …
Barbara Kruger is an American feminist conceptual artist who challenges cultural assumptions by manipulating images and text in her photographic compositions. She is best known for her print Untitled (Your body is a battleground) (1989) which uses her signature style of a black and white photograph with red and white text. The image was designed …
Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse who helped soldiers during the Crimean War by setting up a “British Hotel” behind the lines for sick and convalescent officers. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991. Seacole was born Mary Grant in 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica. She was of Scottish and Creole descent …
Ann Oakley is a British sociologist, feminist and writer who pioneered research into women’s lives, including the role of a housewife, childbirth and motherhood. She is currently a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London where she founded the Social Science Research Unit and established the EPPI-Centre (Evidence for Policy and Practice Information …
Stephanie Kwolek was an American chemist who is best known for inventing the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness: poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide—better known as Kevlar. Kwolek was born in 1923 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Her father, John Kwolek, was a naturalist and Kwolek spent hours exploring the woods and fields …