Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She wrote and illustrated more than 20 children’s books featuring the animals Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Benjamin Bunny. Potter was born in 1866 in London. Her father Rupert had trained as a lawyer but devoted himself to art and photography, her mother Helen …
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French graphic novelist, illustrator, film director, and children’s book author. She is best known for her graphic novel Persepolis, which provide an insight into life in Iran during the Iranian Revolution of the early 80’s. Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran and grew up in Tehran. Her parents …
Katherine Murray “Kate” Millett is an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She is an acknowledged leader of the modern women’s movement. Millett was born in 1934 in Saint Paul, Minnesota to James Albert and Helen Feely Millett. The family’s background was Irish Catholic, and Kate attended several parochial schools. Her father was an …
Missy “misdemeanor” Elliott is a Grammy Award-winning singer, rapper, songwriter and producer who has achieved great success while breaking boundaries in the male-dominated world of hip-hop. Missy Elliott was born Melissa Arnette Elliott in 1971 in Portsmouth, Virginia. She was the only child of Patricia, a power-company dispatcher, and father Ronnie, a U.S. Marine. She …
Misty Copeland is an American ballet dancer and the first African-American performer to be appointed as a principal dancer for American Ballet Theatre. Copland was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1982 and raised in San Pedro, California. When she was seven, Copeland saw Nadia on the Lifetime network and Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci became …
Marian Anderson was an American singer and one of the finest contraltos of her time. She became the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955 and an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States. Anderson was born in South Philadelphia …
Anne-Marie “Marie” Tussaud was a French artist who became known for her wax sculptures. She is the founder of Madame Tussauds, the wax museum in London. Tussaud was raised by her mother Anne in Bern, Switzerland. She worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, whom Tussaud referred to as ‘Uncle’. Curtius was a physician …