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

[AwfulMaureen]

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?

[BelaLugosisShed]

Fanny Deakin, a true working class hero of mine.

[Thisisaghostlyeuphemism]

I was amazed dilidali - what a life!

Edith cavell

Dr. Apger (?)

[Thisisaghostlyeuphemism]

I'm looking forward to reading more about these, especially your fanny, bella!

[alittlebitbockety]

Pirate Queen of Mayo (Ireland)

[GW297]

I was going to say Annie Sullivan too. I was in Sullivan tutor group in Year 7 at secondary school.

[GW297]

Also Mary Seacole

[AphraBehn]

Couple of others but I do hope you have actually heard of them

Josephine Butler

Mary Wollstonecraft

Barbara Castle

[RalphRecklessCardew]

Hedy Lamarr. 1940s star whose ideas about frequency-hopping made wifi possible.

[SundaySimmons]

www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/293/Susan+Peters/register.php

Susan Peters.

She was only 31 when she died. She had a luminous beauty and was a terrific actress. Sadly she suffered an accident which rendered her paralysed from the waist down.

She was determined to walk again and a wonderful inspiration and she was able to again but was frustrated by only being given roles that encompassed her disability and confinement to her wheelchair.

Sadly, her health deteriorated and her health was further compromised by anorexia and she died.

When you see her acting, she was very talented and the day she was shot a bright light innHollywood was dimmed.

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

How about Christine Skarbeck/Granville - polish woman from a wealthy aristocratic jewish family who went on to spy for Britain. Its all very James Bond and she was either extremely reckless or very brave - she apparently had "it" (whatever "it" is) and was adored by both men and dogs

I am reading The Spy who Loved at the moment.

nigelperrin.com/christinegranville.htm#.UtGYe7SPRPs

[RalphRecklessCardew]

That should have read 'movie star'. Seriously, google Hedy Lamar. One hell of a dame.

Amelia Earhart, Jessica Mitford, Shirley Jackson, Rita Levi Montalcini.

Shirley Jackson was a 1950s housewife turned writer

[RalphRecklessCardew]

Aaargh. Phone playing up. Anyway, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has one of the great opening sentences and lives up to it.

[chutneypig]

I completely agree with Rosalind Franklin. I used to work with someone who worked for her, amazing to hear stories of that time.

And on the same vein, Dorothy Hodgkin another outstanding scientist and pioneer in the field.

Their work has had a phenomenal impact on science.

[NigellasDealer]

Mary Kingsley

[NearTheWindmill]

Margaret Beaufort

[MrsCakesPremonition]

Noor Inayat Khan

[MrsCakesPremonition]

And Fanny Burney lived a pretty amazing life, and made women writing acceptable.

[TwoAndTwoEqualsChaos]

I was going to say Edith Cavell, Thisis.

Cecily, Duchess of York, a very strong, independent woman, mother and grandmother of Kings.

[Meerka]

Gertrude Bell, explorer in the middle east.

Katherine Swynford mistress and later wife to John of Gaunt. Her descendants became royal.

Artemisia Naval Commander in ancient Persia

[Dilidali]

I must apologise, the food was about to be served, hence my mad haste to post. James Barry was born at the end of the 1700 as a girl. Girls could not become doctors, so she went to medical school aged 15 pretending to be a boy. Which she pretended for the rest of her life. Postmortem it was discovered that she also had a child at some point.

I found about her reading http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0571244912?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 The Book of the Dead which is a fantastic book I throughly recommend.

[Dilidali]

Book of the Dead

[QueenofLouisiana]

Catherine De Medici

Powerful, focused, I'm sure not always pleasant though.

[Slatecross]

Is like to see this thread in Classics!