Hannah Höch was an important member of the Berlin Dada movement, a pioneer of photomontage and a feminist icon. Höch was born in 1889, in Gotha, Germany. She was forced to leave school at 15 to take care of a sister, and was not able to resume her studies until she was 22 when 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 …
Jane Austen was an English Georgian era novelist whose books, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for their wit, social observation and insights into the lives of early 19th century women. Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire in 1775. She was the seventh child and second daughter of Cassandra and George …
Roxane Gay is an American writer, professor, editor, blogger, and commentator. She is a 2015 winner of PEN USA’s Freedom to Write award for her demonstration of exceptional courage in the defence of free expression. Gay was born in Nebraska to Haitian parents. Her family moved several times during her childhood and as Gay was …
Janet Mock is an American best-selling author, transgender rights activist, sought-after speaker and the founder of #GirlsLikeUs, a social media project that empowers trans women. Mock was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1983. She grew up in Hawaii and Oakland, California. Mock knew at an early age that she wanted to become a writer, and …
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress and model. She became one of the world’s biggest and most enduring sex symbols. Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, in Los Angeles, California. Monroe’s mother, Gladys Pearl Monroe was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, Monroe was placed with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender …
Toni Morrison was a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. She was the first Black Woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio to George and Ramah Wofford. Her parents had moved to Ohio to escape southern racism and taught their children about …
Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She brought French cooking to everyday Americans, with her groundbreaking cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child was born Julia Carolyn McWilliams in 1912 in Pasadena, California. She was the daughter of John McWilliams, Jr, a Princeton graduate and early investor in California real …
bell hooks is an American author, feminist, and social activist whose work deals with issues of race, gender, class, and sexual oppression. hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a small, segregated town in rural Kentucky. Her experience in growing up within this community shaped her feminism and her father represented …
Gerda Lerner was an American historian, author and the single most influential figure in the development of women’s and gender history since the 1960s. Lerner was born Gerda Hedwig Kronstein in Vienna, Austria in 1920. She was the first child of the affluent Jewish couple Ilona (née Neumann), an artist and Robert Kronstein, a pharmacist. …