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?

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

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

[AwfulMaureen]

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

[WhamBamThankYouMam]

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.

[PartyPoison]

I find Eleanor of Acquatine fascinating.

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

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

[Thisisaghostlyeuphemism]

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

[Thisisaghostlyeuphemism]

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

[WhamBamThankYouMam]

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

This thread definitely needs to go in Classics.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

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

[AnAdventureInCakeAndWine]

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.

[greenhill]

What about Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist?

Frida Kahlo

[Prettykitty111]

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

[WhamBamThankYouMam]

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

[Changebagsandgladrags]

Verity Lambert

First producer of Doctor Who.

[rabbitlady]

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.

[RandomMess]

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.

[ElBandito]

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!

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

Gwenllian

[SunshineOnACrappyDay]

Dorothy Lawrence fought in WWI.

I love this thread :)

[morethanpotatoprints]

Billie Holliday.

Sang it how it was and was a great account of the atrocities happening.
Strong woman who suffered dv, drug addiction but still kept going like she was possessed.

[NigellasDealer]

oh oh poor Princess Gwenllian I only heard of her recently - such a pretty name as well....

[NigellasDealer]

maybe that is a different Gwenllian...

[Financeprincess]

I love reading about the Matildas. They were amazing women.

Matilda of Flanders, William the Conqueror's queen. Feisty.

Matilda of Scotland, Henry I's queen. Gave as good as she got.

Matilda of Boulogne, Stephen's queen. Gathered support for her husband during the war, in her own right.

Empress Matilda, who was nearly our first queen. Her son, Henry II, succeeded to the throne of England and married Eleanor of Acquitaine - she must have reminded him of his formidable mother!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Jeanne de Montbaston.

She worked as an illuminator of manuscripts at a time where lots of idiot scholars used to think no women were professionals (in fact there were all-women guilds at the time, but don't let that spoil a good story).

Jeanne and her husband worked together, in Paris, illustrating some of the most important books of the day. But we know some books were illustrated just by her, including some pictures where she illustrates a really misogynistic text but putting pictures of women picking penises and putting them in a basket. I think it's a giant 'fuck you' to the text. .

She isn't 'amazing' in a politically important way but I love her anyway.

[joanofarchitrave]

Most will have heard of her, but Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement.