To ask for your inspirational historical women or

[Furbulousnous]

men at a push that a 9 year old girl might like to learn about/ be inspired by??
DD loves non/ fiction biogs and we’ve done the obvious ones like Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Anne Frank etc and ALL the female pirates!
So looking for ideas for either books your child has read or a great role model type that we can Google and read about! She likes reading about women more than men, and the more adventurous the better!

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She wanted to be a doctor but UK med schools didn't take women then. French med schools did - so she learnt French, trained in France, came back and set up the women's hospital that was named after her. Continued the fight for med schools to admit women. In retirement she become England's first female mayor. Totally determined and kickass.

Have you got Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls? Brief sketches but you could find more about those who take her interest in there.

Hedy Lamarr was a fascinating person.
Sophie Scholl (although the ending to her story might be a bit heavy for a 9 year old)
Harriet Tubman

@Purpletomato that’s a great one! Forgot how kick arse she was..
@DistrictCommissioner we do, ta. Was just interested to see if the MN massive, quirky as they are, could come up with someone we’re not that familiar with!

Not exactly historical, but Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup (in 2015, I think). She had a really nasty fall but battled her way back to riding. There's a film too.

Jane Goodall
Hatshepsut
Nancy Astor

Beatrice Shilling - some one close to me worked witb her on fixing a serious flaw in spitfires. She sounds amazing

Rosa Parks, the women like Violet Szarbo who parachuted into France during WW2 (try and find the happy endings though), Nellie Bligh (or Bly?), Mae Jemison and other astronauts - I'll keep thinking!

Lucille Ball from I love Lucy. Had her own production company with her husband which brought us the original Star Trek. Other companies wouldn't touch it because it had women and ethnic minority in main roles.

I got this book for my dds when they were younger that has lots

Bethany Hamilton was the 13 year old American surfer who had her arm bitten off by a shark. She returned to surfing one month after losing her arm and is still a professional surfer 20 years later.

I always thought she was pretty awe inspiring. And the sort of story that would appeal to a 9 year old.

If you are on Facebook have a look at ‘a mighty girl’. They promote loads of great women and have lists of books about them.

Grace Darling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Darling

Hidden Depths: Women of the RNLI is a great book for others

Adventure wise I'd recommend looking at:

Bessie Coleman
Valentina Tereshkova

Hannah Sheehy Skeffington or indeed any of the Suffragette movements.

Grace Darling by Helen Cresswell
Mary Anning’s Treasures by ? Bush I think

How about Francesca Caccini? She was the top musician of the Florentine Court in the early 17th century, and was the first female opera composer, composing over a dozen (unfortunately, we have only 1 left over, but it's awesome and ends in a horse ballet!). She was also apparently quite assertive, standing up for the young women whom she was in charge of teaching, against unwanted attentions by certain males.

Boudicca. Fascinating part of history too.

How historical do they have to be?

Mamphela Ramphele is awesome. Her character features briefly in the film Cry Freedom because Steve Biko was her partner, but she's pretty kickass in herself: medical doctor (achieved under apartheid), political activist, MD of World Bank.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamphela_Ramphele

"Rosa Parks"

Claudette Colvin was the first to refuse to move, they used Rosa Parks because she was more socially acceptable.

Hedy lamarr actress but also invented something that is still used today for wifi

Bess of Hardwick.
Mary Somerville.

I think I will also be googling and reading up on these women

There's a series called something like 'Women who shaped history / the world. We loved it when DD was younger.

Notable women archaeologists

Linda Braidwood, United States, Near Eastern Archaeology[31]
Gertrude Caton-Thompson, United Kingdom, Egyptologist[19]
Grace Crowfoot, United Kingdom, archaeological textiles[32]
Frederica de Laguna, United States, Native Alaskan cultures[33]
Caroline Dormon,[5] United States, indigenous peoples of Louisiana[34]
Edith Hall Dohan, United States, Etruscan and Mediterranean civilizations[35]
Harriet Boyd Hawes, United States, Minoan and Mediterranean cultures[36]
Dorothy Cross Jensen,[5] United States, Iraq and indigenous peoples of New Jersey[37]
Semni Karouzou, Greece, Classical Archaeology[38]
Mary Butler Lewis, United States, Hudson Valley[5]
Margaret Murray, India/United Kingdom, Egyptologist[32]
Hilda Petrie, Ireland, Egyptologist[32]
Dorothy Popenoe, United Kingdom, Honduran Maya and Pre-Columbian era[5]
Tatiana Proskouriakoff, Russia/United States, Guatemalan and Mexican Maya[39]
Elizabeth Riefstahl, United States, Egyptologist[19]
Doris Stone, United States, Costa Rican and Honduran prehistory[40]
Marian E. White, United States, Erie people, Neutral Nation, Wenrohronon[5]*+
Sara Yorke Stevenson, United States, Egyptology and Near East

Source
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_archaeology#:~:text=Notable%20women%20archaeologists%20Linda%20Braidwood%2C%20United%20States%2C%20Near,Alaskan%20cultures%20Caroline%20Dormon%2C%20United%20States%2C%20indigenous%20