Betty Friedan was an American writer, women’s rights activist, and feminist. She co-founded the National Organisation for Women (NOW). Friedan was involved with the school newspaper while at Peoria High School, after her application to write her own column was turned down she and 6 friends launched a literary magazine called ‘Tide’. She graduated from …
Clara Barton was a pioneer in the field of nursing and one of the founders of the American Red Cross. Barton realised that she was destined to become a nurse when her brother David became seriously ill after a barn-raising accident, 11 year old Barton nursed him for two years. After David recovered Barton was …
Marie Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, academic, campaigner for women’s rights and pioneer in the field of birth control. Stopes was born in Edinburgh to an archaeologist father and scholarly, suffragist mother. Her parents had met through the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Stopes attended University College London (UCL) where she studied …
Billie Holiday was a hugely influential American jazz musician and singer-songwriter. Holiday (real name Eleanora Fagan) had a difficult childhood, her mother Sadie Fagan worked “transportation jobs”, serving on passenger railroads which meant that Holiday was left with family for most of the time. Holiday frequently skipped school and her truancy led to her being …
Madam C.J Walker was a civil rights activist, philanthropist and entrepreneur. She was named “the first black woman millionaire in America” for her successful line of hair care products. Walker was the first free child born to her parents Owen and Minerva Anderson Breedlove (her birth name is Sarah Breedlove). She was born on a …
Edith New was an English suffragette. She was one of the first to smash windows in an attempt to bring attention to women’s suffrage. New had been an assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901 before leaving Swindon to teach in deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. After hearing Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a …
Annie Kenney was an English working class suffragette who became a leading figure in the Women’s Social and Political Union. Kenney started work at the age of 10 in a local cotton mill in Yorkshire. She was a cotton frame tenter and her duties were to crawl on her hands and knees under the machine …
Joan Jett is an American musician. She became a female pioneer in the male-dominated world of rock music while frontwoman for The Runaways. Jett got her first guitar when she was 14 and quit lessons after her teacher would only teach her folk songs since that was all that was deemed appropriate for a girl. …
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 …
Angela Davis is an American academic, Civil Rights Activist, scholar and Women’s Rights Activist who advocates for the oppressed. Davis’ political activism began when she was a child in Birmingham, Alabama. She lived in the “Dynamite Hill” neighbourhood, which was marked by racial conflict and experienced racial prejudice and discrimination. As a teenager she organised …