Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher and advocate of Women’s rights. Wollstonecraft was brought up by an abusive father whom she left at age 17 when her mother died. She set up a school in Newington Green with her sister, who had fled an abusive marriage. She used this experience to write the pamphlet …
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale is known as ‘the founder of modern nursing’ and is famously thought of as ‘The Lady with the Lamp’. She is named after Florence, Italy, her place of birth. Nightingale was active in helping those less fortunate than herself early in her life, helping those who were ill or poor in the village …
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the ‘godmother of rock ‘n’ roll’. She was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and recording artist. Tharpe’s mother encouraged her musically and by 4 years old she was performing under the name ‘Little Rosetta Nubin’ (Rosetta Nubin is her birth name). She would sing and play guitar. At six Tharpe was …
Sylvia Rae Rivera
Sylvia Rivera was an American drag queen (a term she later claimed to hate, rejecting all labels), gay liberation and transgender activist. Along with Marsha P Johnson she was one of the first to resist the police during the Stonewall Riots. Rivera reportedly shouted, “I’m not missing a minute of this, it’s the revolution!” as …
Marsha P Johnson
Marsha “Pay No Mind” Johnson was an activist, performer, model, sex worker (for which she was frequently arrested), and mother figure to many young trans women in New York during her lifetime. She was such a well known face that she posed for Andy Warhol, which she felt was a clear indication of her fame. …
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist and the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. She devoted her life to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change. Coretta was born in Alabama where she graduated valedictorian from Lincoln High School. She then attended Antioch College …
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was a famous ‘conductor’ on the underground railroad leading over 300 of slaves to freedom during the 1850s. Tubman was born a slave in Maryland’s Dorchester County around 1820. She began work at 5/6 as a house servant and seven years later she was forced to work as a field hand. She endured …
Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison is most famous for her tragic death when running into the path of King George V’s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby on 4 June 1913. Thousands of suffragettes accompanied the coffin and tens of thousands lined the streets on the day of her funeral. Davison was a militant activist who fought …
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a political activist and the leader of the British suffragette movement. She fought for the rights of women and used militant tactics never before associated with women to bring attention to women’s suffrage. Pankhurst fought for the vote for women with the belief that if women were able to vote they would …