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Original poster

Tell me about an amazing woman in history that I may not have heard about?

293 replies

AwfulMaureen · 11/01/2014 18:16

There are LOADS of women in history who've done incredible things or had amazing careers but have been forgotten...like an amazing singer from the twenties/thirties who also worked as a prostitute and who wrote and sang some of the most shockingly filthy songs in addition to having a stunning voice.

She began singing professionally as a child having been singing on the street for money...she was offered work in bars. ...I love Lucille Bogan...WARNING...don't play the song in the link if the kids are around!

Tell me your favourite unknown women?

OP posts:
WallyBantersJunkBox · 11/01/2014 22:19

Gwenllian

ElBandito · 11/01/2014 21:53

I second Nancy Wake. WW2 heroine. Brave, determined and lived her life her way. I know someone who met her. At over 90 she drank him (half her age) under the table!

RandomMess · 11/01/2014 21:38

Grace Darling, risked her own life as a young woman to help her light house keeper father rescue people from a sinking boat off the Farne Islands.

rabbitlady · 11/01/2014 21:33

Mother Ann Lee (a cook from Manchester), founder of the Shaker movement, who 'walked with Jesus as with a lover', and was later considered the female aspect of Christ by some followers.
Mother Lucy Wright, and Sister Rebecca Jackson, also Shakers. Not sure if RJ got to be a Mother. I should know, I wrote my dissertation about these three, but it was some time ago.

Changebagsandgladrags · 11/01/2014 21:28

Verity Lambert

First producer of Doctor Who.

WhamBamThankYouMam · 11/01/2014 21:27

Marie Curie's daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won the Noble prize with her husband in 1935 and her second daughter, Ève Denise Curie Labouisse, was the head of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.

Ève Denise Curie Labouisse

Irène Joliot-Curie

Prettykitty111 · 11/01/2014 21:20

Jane I was going to say Elizabeth garret Anderson. The first woman to attend UCL to train as a doctor. All the men said she was too delicate to attend autopsies so she went to Uni in France instead and taught herself french to study. She trained so she could bring good quality healthcare to women and children

greenhill · 11/01/2014 21:19

What about Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist?

Frida Kahlo

AnAdventureInCakeAndWine · 11/01/2014 21:07

To be fair, Rosa Parks also did what Rosa Parks did before she did it (she later said "My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest...I did a lot of walking in Montgomery.") I'm not sure why the 1955 incident was the one that proved most cathartic.

Irene Morgan's case was slightly different in that the reason she (eventually) won her appeal was that she was on an interstate bus travelling between Virginia and Maryland -- the principle at stake was whether Virginia could enforce segregation on an (otherwise unsegregated) interstate bus while it was in Virginia. There was no legal attempt at that point to challenge whether a state could enforce segregation on its own public transport - that didn't come until after the Montgomery bus boycott started.

Interestingly, it wasn't the Parks case that eventually determined the legal position -- because it was a criminal case campaigners were concerned that it would take forever to go through all the various levels of appeal and get to the Supreme Court to consider the constitutional point, so they put together a civil action ( Browder v. Gayle ) on behalf of several other women who had been victims of the segregation policy.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 11/01/2014 21:04

maureen Yes, timing did have a lot to do with it. Rosa Parks was a very brave women and so were the several women who came before her.

Rosa Parks' Wikipedia entry gives a pretty good overview with links to the others. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

WhamBamThankYouMam · 11/01/2014 20:59

I'm jealous, I'd love to visit that.

This thread definitely needs to go in Classics.

Thisisaghostlyeuphemism · 11/01/2014 20:59

Wow, cinnamon, that's an interesting tale- bit like rosalind franklin then? Terrible!

Thisisaghostlyeuphemism · 11/01/2014 20:57

Ah whambam, I visited Josephine bakers house in the dordogne (it's now a museum) she was an extraordinary woman.

BlueSkySunnyDay · 11/01/2014 20:51

Did you see this last year? memorial to wartime women agents

PartyPoison · 11/01/2014 20:51

I find Eleanor of Acquatine fascinating.

WhamBamThankYouMam · 11/01/2014 20:48

Josephine Baker, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker

One of the first African-American female superstars, first to star in a major movie. Famous entertainer, dancer, singer.

Worked or the French Military Intelligence gathering/passing on information during WWII, as well as entertaining troops for free.

Civil rights activist.

Adopted and raised 12 children from different ethnicity and backgrounds.

Amazing woman.

Tell me about an amazing woman in history that I may not have heard about?
Original poster
AwfulMaureen · 11/01/2014 20:44

Oh really Scone? Wow....I wonder what made Rosa Parks famous and not Irene? It must have been the timing?

OP posts:
SconeRhymesWithGone · 11/01/2014 20:42

Irene Morgan, who did what Rosa Parks did a decade before Rosa Parks did it.

Cinnamoncookie · 11/01/2014 20:42

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, although not so much historic as she is very much alive. Should have been joint recipient of a Nobel Prize for Physics due to her work with colleagues on pulsars but was shamefully excluded.

(Should admit I am more than slightly biased as she went to the same school as me, and my grandfather was her physics teacher (completely outs self))

Donki · 11/01/2014 20:40

Hilda of Whitby

Original poster
AwfulMaureen · 11/01/2014 20:35

Ooh I went off to put the DC to bed and look! Loads! I love it! It's going to take ages to get through them all....thanks so much...lovely sharing our all too quiet heroines....let's hope they're not too unknown for too much longer.

Some I've heard of but plenty I've not!

OP posts:
babyphat · 11/01/2014 20:31

Was going to say Violette Szabo but too was too late - so Vera Atkins

Helm, Sarah (May 2005). A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE.

Loved this book

stickysausages · 11/01/2014 20:29

Marking place, for when I'm not squiffy!!

SundaySimmons · 11/01/2014 20:28

Erin Pizzey

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey

Sought to offer women shelter and aid. Sadly, her views were undermined by militant feminists.

Badvoc · 11/01/2014 20:25

Violet szabo

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