Mary Carpenter was an English educational and social reformer. She brought education to poor children and young offenders in Bristol who had been previously denied it. Carpenter was born in 1807 in Exeter. In 1817 her family moved to Bristol and her father took charge of the Lewin’s Mead Unitarian meeting house. He also established …
Hannah More was an English educator, writer and social reformer. She was known for her writings on abolition and for encouraging women to join the anti-slavery movement. More was born in 1745 in Fishponds, Bristol. She was the fourth of five daughters of Jacob More, a schoolmaster from Harleston, Norfolk and Mary Grace More. More’s …
Laura Jane Grace is an American musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Grace was born in Fort Benning, Georgia in 1980. Her family moved frequently between military bases and lived briefly in Fort Hood, Texas; Pennsylvania; Ohio; Germany; and at a NATO post …
Poly Styrene was a British musician, singer-songwriter, and front-woman of the punk rock band X-Ray Spex. Styrene was born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said in 1957 in Bromley, Kent, England. She was raised in Brixton, London by her mother. Styrene left home at 15 with only £3. She hitchhiked between musical festivals and stayed at hippie crash …
Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 to James and Elizabeth Baumfree in the town of Swartekill, in Ulster County, New York. Her father was a slave who had been captured in modern-day Ghana and her mother was the daughter of slaves from Guinea. The …
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 …
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, women’s rights activist and writer. Mead was born in 1901 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Edward Sherwood Mead, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Emily Mead, a feminist political activist and sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Mead’s family moved frequently and …
Iris Apfel is an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon. Apfel was born Iris Barrel in Astoria, Queens, New York to Samuel Barrel, whose family owned a glass-and-mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye, who owned a fashion boutique. Apfel studied art history at New York University and then attended art school at the …
Florence B. Seibert was an American biochemist best known for her contributions to the tuberculin test and to safety measures for intravenous drug therapy. She is a member of the U.S. National Women’s Hall of Fame. Seibert was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. As the age of three she contracted polio which left her with a …
Mary Berry CBE is an English food writer, baker and television presenter, known for being a judge on The Great British Bake Off. She has written over 70 cookbooks which have sold over five million copies. Berry was born in Bath in 1935 to Alleyne William Steward Berry and his wife Margaret. Her father would …