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People Are Listing The Women That Got Overlooked In History Along With Their Important Achievements (30 Pics)
Interview With Author
The pages of history are filled with examples of women making major contributions to society and helping propel humankind into the future. However, some of these examples tend to be glossed over and overlooked by some historians. In fact, The Representation Project claims that women are only represented in 0.5 percent of recorded history.
Wanting to improve all of our understanding of history, Reddit user Dundermifflinhoe urged their fellow redditors to share examples of great women that we may not have heard of. And when you’re done reading through this list and sharing who you personally think some women that often get overlooked in history are, check out Bored Panda’s post about people sharing their female heroes whom they admire right here.
The author of the thread told Bored Panda that they'd turned to Reddit with their question because they're currently working on a paper on the history of women and hysteria for a class in school.
"I realized that I don't know many famous women throughout history. Learning about how so many women who had thoughts or opinions on a subject were deemed crazy put into perspective how little I knew, and I wanted to educate myself more. Hopefully, some other people who were curious about it can benefit as well. I absolutely did not expect it to blow up as big as it did, but I’m happy that so many people are wanting to further educate themselves on the topic as well." Read on for our full interviews with Dundermifflinhoe and with an expert on gender discrimination.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Nellie Bly. She was a 1890s journalist who was given an assignment to investigate the Woman’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island due to accusations of the mistreatment of patients. She got in there by faking insanity and getting herself committed to the asylum, and when she was finally released, she ran an exposé in the New York World called “Ten Days In A Madhouse” that exposed the awful treatment of patients inside the asylum. This was considered a revolution in investigative journalism. Also, she read “Around The World In 80 Days”, basically decided she could do better, and went around the world in 72 days. She was also an inventor, and was one of the primary journalists to cover the suffragette movement. She's one of my favorite historical figures who doesn’t get enough attention!
Mihran Hovnanian 5 years ago
+ became CEO of Iron Clad Manufacturing Co after her husband's death + registered engineering patents + WWI reporter on the eastern front.... what more did she need to do to get recognition!!?!?
Michelle Moore-Scognamiglio 5 years ago
Nellie Bly, the pen name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, was my inspirational hero as a kid and to this day.
Flash Henry 5 years ago
I had one teacher in high school who actually spent a whole class on teaching us about her life.
RELATED:
#2
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. She is the Dean of Medicine at Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint, MI. She saw that children were having elevated lead levels (ELLs) outside the normal range. She contacted the Genesee Department of Health, who at first, dismissed her claim, then sent her obfuscated data to make it look like the ELLs were completely within normal trends. She grew frustrated at this, so she called a team of epidemiologists from UVA (her alma mater) to find the source of the lead. Lo and behold, she found that the water in multiple zip codes was contaminated with lead. She informed the Genesee Department of Health Again, who brushed her off. She then said "f**k it" and held a major press conference where she announced on air that the water in Flint wasn't safe and to come to the hospital to get your child tested and to pick up supplies of water and liquid infant formula. She saved thousands of children from the permanent effects of lead poisoning.
Lillukka79 4 years ago
Who are you to deside what others should or shouldn't see? That's why we can vote up or down, your comment it useless.
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Debbie 5 years ago
@Tiari: Asking questions when not understanding or not agreeing immediately 100% is often met with downvotes.. people are more and more only able to think in black and white and forget there's loads of colours in between.
Beans 5 years ago
This is so true. People especially lately judge so much in black and white.
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Tesa Guevara 4 years ago
And this is largely due to devil may care greed of big companies, Nestle in particular.....they unscrupulously exhaust and contaminate water supply from natural sources. See documentary on Netflix about this and a host of other companies corruption and exploitation all for the blind love of money.
Saico Hipe 5 years ago
Elevated levels of lead are associated with mental illness and extremely vjolent/antisocial tendencies. Tetra Ethyl Lead used to be in gasoline, and the elevates levels of lead in the air and water caused by it were strongly correlated with the record high crime rates of the 70s. The people potentially affected by this likely would have gone on to wreak havoc in many parts of society, even outside Flint.
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#3
Grace Hopper. This should so be higher up. Without Grace, programming would have been reserved for scientists only. We probably wouldn't have most of what we have today in regards to software and the advantages we enjoyed because of that.
She was a Motherf**king Legend.
She had a masters in maths in a time when a lot of Universities still didn't allow women to attend.
On her very first Job with a computer, she asked for a manual. They told her there isn't one. A few months later she had written one.
When she suggested the idea of a compiler - a way to write more English like statements to make the whole programming thing easier, faster and more accessible to the masses - she was told not to do it. Scientists firstly didn't believe it could be done, and secondly didn't want it to be done because they were more interested in protecting their "elite" career of programming.
She did it anyway.
Emma Perkins 5 years ago
Yep! She removed a moth from the computer and put it in her journal, coining the term "computer bug." I believe that journal is on display somewhere
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Timothy Leung 3 years ago
I was a computer science graduate (back in the mid 80's) and her name was never mentioned nor appeared in any text book.
Popcorn Colonel 5 years ago
My name is Rather close to hers, growing up I had a book that briefly mentioned her name. She was my hero. <3
The redditor said that they believe so many women get overlooked in history because they're discriminated against. "They weren’t in a position of power to safely promote their ideas on a certain topic or were told that they were crazy. I think the biggest reason would be that we just aren’t taught about their contributions and after so many decades and centuries, their names just gets lost."
However, the redditor believes that society is changing for the better and allows better recognition for women. Yet, there's still a long way to go. "We’re still not where we need to be. Continuing to educate ourselves, as well as asking questions, will help pave a way for women to be as equally recognized by men in the future."
#4
Bessie Coleman. She was a black woman who wanted to learn to fly. No one would teach her. She learned that the French would however, so she moved to France, learned French and how to fly. Then she came back to the states and taught whoever wanted to learn. She was alive same time as Amelia Earhart and got no recognition at the time.
Clara Knaub 5 years ago
Man. We all know Amelia Earhart and no one has heard of Bessie Coleman? It’s so unfair.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
I am well-aquainted with the exploits of Bessie Coleman! The only reason more people know about Amelia Earhart is the conspiracy-theories surrounding her disappearance. Another fun fact, she can also be considered to be the first Native American to earn a pilots license.
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Earl Flanagan 4 years ago
One of the main streets at the Frankfurt Germany Airport is named after her.
Tesa Guevara 4 years ago
Bigotry begets bigotry, no wonder bigotry is still alive and kicking in the USA.
Daniel Hayton 5 years ago
Bessie trained at Le Croty (Baie dela Somme https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_de_pilotage_Caudron_du_Crotoy
#5
Marie Tharp; she created the first map of the ocean floor, which led to the discovery of tectonic plates, and the theory of continental drift.
Beatrice Multhaupt 5 years ago
Sorry guys, you also need to include an overlooked man: Alfred Wegener, who endured ridicule and censorship for his seminal work on continental drift. Alexander von Humbold and many others before him had noted the similarities between coastlines of Westwern Africa and South America, but Wegener was the first to attribute these observations to moving tectonic plates.
Wolfstar 5 years ago
Yes, he is overlooked, but this post is about overlooked women.
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Ashley Seatter 5 years ago
Sorry, NOT Wrong. Do a quick google there, Bill... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafloor_mapping
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Katherine Johnson, one of the first black mathmeticians to work for NASA. She did a lot of work on calculating trajectories for the Apollo missions, but her most important contributions were the backup procedures for the Apollo 13 mission. You've probably heard the famous line, "Houston, we have a problem." Katherine Johnson is responsible for solving that problem by calculating a safe return for the Apollo 13 astronauts.
Wolfstar 5 years ago
There's a movie about her, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. It's really good, it's called Hidden Figures.
Bender Bending Rodríguez 5 years ago
I am glad for President Obama recognizing them. However, I find it very sad and disheartening that it took so long for them the get much-owed recognization for their contribution to one of the most important milestones in US American history.
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Mommyofboth 5 years ago
The fact that she was from White Sulphur Springs, WV and she also paved the way for many other African Americans (men/women) is something to say. I loved the Hidden Figures Movie.
History is one thing, but what about the challenges that women face in the workplace today? To learn more about them, Bored Panda contacted Elizabeth Arif-Fear, writer and founder of Voice of Salam. Arif-Fear, an expert in topics like gender (in)equality, explained that there are “major obstacles” for women in the workplace. However, to what extent and how this manifests actually varies by profession, location, and the working culture of the company or employer.
“The gender pay gap is of course the most obvious marker of gender inequality in the workplace and is a gross violation of women's rights,” she pointed out the clearest example.
#7
Claudette Colvin was the person who refused to get up from her bus seat during the Jim Crows in America. But she was a young woman who was pregnant out of wedlock at the time, and the black leaders decided she was not a good image of an activist. So they handpicked Rosa Parks to do the same.
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
Everyone keeps missing the bigger picture, was that this was a concerted social justice effort to bring the issue of segregation into the legal system, using the Montgomery Bus System as the vehicle (NPI) to stage the case that would get argued in court. Rosa Parks, a middle-aged seamstress, had less of a scandalous life to detract from character assassination as their test case, unlike the unwed mother, but the prosecutors still tried to smear her moral fitness.
Bama Belle 5 years ago
We understand their motives for going with Rosa, but still it was incredibly unfair to Claudette.
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Soap 5 years ago
Yeah, and stuff isn't fair. i hate it too, but it's other people and stupid ideas that made it this way.
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AnInrovert 5 years ago
OhMyGod! What!?!? No way! Every time someone mentions Rosa Parks I’m gonna mention this.
BusLady 5 years ago
Ms. Colvin was also treated very roughly during her arrest in the bus incident, then ironically charged with assaulting a police officer. She was a plaintiff in the trial for segregation of the bus system, along with 3 other women. I highly recommend her biography, "Twice Toward Justice."
Dippin Dot 5 years ago
I learned about Claudette from the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. If you ever get a chance, I HIGHLY recommend going there. I was talking with one of the employees who ended up giving us an impromptu performance of one of Dr. Kings speeches that he performs around the country. It gave me goosebumps.
Darlene Pruismann 4 years ago
According to NPR's story she wasn't actually pregnant at the time of the arrest.....After Colvin's arrest, she found herself shunned by parts of her community. She experienced various difficulties and became pregnant. http://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin
#8
Ada Lovelace. She's so awesome. For anyone that doesn't know, she effectively invented the basis for modern computer programming by observing her friend Charles Babbage's work on his Analytical Machine, which was effectively a calculator. She realised that it was possible to do more than just maths with it and thus established the basis for modern computing.
David K 5 years ago
This should be higher. I read a few articles about her and she was a brilliant mind. She was also the daughter of the poet lord Byron.
Caroline Nagel 5 years ago
Her mother pushed her towards maths instead of the arts because of Byron's life style
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JessG 5 years ago
The show ‘Victoria’ on Amazon features her in the 2nd season I believe. I wasn’t aware of her before that
Popcorn Colonel 5 years ago
I have a lovely book of female figures in history. She is one fo my favorites!
The Cute Cat 5 years ago
Actually She is never overlooked.. She is a famous figure, just like Babbage and Von Nuemann
#9
In 1952 Dr. Virginia Apgar developed a quick, easy five-point test that summarizes health of newborns, and determine those needing emergency assistance. The Apgar Score is now given to practically every newborn, and helped save countless young lives, and reduce infant mortality.
Tiari 5 years ago
Well... the test that wears her name and is used all over the world would beg to differ that she is overlooked...
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
But I didn't know it was named after her, I didn't know about HER.
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The Cute Cat 5 years ago
Oh wow.. We learn this on nursing school.. Then proceed to (jokingly) use the term for judge how handsome or pretty a person are.. Ha ha ha.. Medical school is so much fun...
Romenriel 5 years ago
Not exactly overlooked in history as Apgar Score is indeed used everywhere.
Fish Boden 5 years ago
But did you know about the woman behind the test? I didn't till now despite knowing about the test itself.
Load More Replies...Looking at the situation in North America and Europe, Arif-Fear sees that the talent of female employees is recognized, however, there are clear obstacles that need to be addressed.
“Discrimination includes women being denied work, in preference for men due to maternity leave allowances. Due to the imbalance between caring for children and housework among male/female partnerships—which is still prevalent across the globe—women are left juggling a high amount of childcare and work which places extra demands on women,” she explained.
There are ways around this. For instance, employers could offer flexible schedules to allow parents to drop their children off at school in the morning. However, Arif-Fear believes that this isn’t enough. “Practical barriers add an extra burden onto women. Beyond childcare, women in leadership is an area that is evolving but there is still a massive glass ceiling. We need more women in leadership positions,” she added.
#10
Irena Sendler worked with others to smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto during WWII.
Clara Knaub 5 years ago
I’m reading a book right now about a Jewish child getting out of Luxembourg before the war became too bad! The girl had someone who helped her get out and risked their life for her. This lady here is amazing!
Mabel Maney 5 years ago
I’m sorry I don’t have all the details to the story, but I saw a documentary about a man in Germany who saved hundreds of Jewish children. He was in an audience and he was being interviewed, and it turned out that every person in the audience with someone he had saved.
JuJu 5 years ago
Sir Nicholas Winton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFuJAF5F0
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Avery S Alberico 5 years ago
I read a book in her POV called Irena's Children: Young Reader's Addition (not as immature as it sounds)
#11
Sandra Ford, the drug technician who first brought attention to what would become the AIDS epidemic. She knew something was up when she began receiving unusually high numbers of requests for pentamidine, an antibiotic reserved for treating pneumocystis pneumonia in seriously ill, immuno-compromised patients. The patients it was being requested for were gay men who had been otherwise healthy.
Just JoLynn 5 years ago
I feel like this description doesn't highlight what she actually did. I'd like to know about how she brought this to light and it contributed to the AIDS epidemic. Now I have to research her.
#12
Cicely Saunders deserves the reputation Mother Tereasa has. She basically invented hospice care. Before her, doctors used to just abandon incurables to die with no palliative care. Cecily Saunders arguably eliminated more useless suffering than anyone ever.
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
No one "deserves" MT's reputation, as I'm sure none of us in a role of providing compassionate care would *encourage* suffering of another because of our personal beliefs, nor deny patients with AIDS to TV watching because their sickness derived from "sin".
Terd Fergison 5 years ago
F-u-c-k mother Teresa! She believed suffering brought you closer to god. She reused dirty needles in her houses of the dying. She raised tons of money, but refused to spend any of it on pain medicine for the people she "helped". She was a hypocrite who flew first class. Towards the end of her life, she couldn't even hear god (her belief waned), but she still committed atrocities in his name. You also spelled Mother *Teresa incorrectly.
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
Mother Theresa's reputation is ...far from positive. I dont think Cicely Saunders deserves to have such BAD reputation as that religious fanatic.
Spittnimage 5 years ago
MT rarely got patients treated because she thought their suffering was "beautiful." She didn't waste time getting herself to a hospital tho if she was sick.
Neva Nevičica 5 years ago
I guess it was probably because we all know who is Mother Teresa and most of us never heard of Cicely Saunders, which makes it unfair.
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#13
Rosalind Franklin - Crick & Watson got all the glory, and even the plaque at the Eagle only mentions their name.
Watson and Crick basically stole her research and used it to discover the shape of DNA. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery. Once the theft was discovered, and she was given proper credit, she had already died from cancer (her work specialized in Xrays and she had been exposed to too much radiation). The Nobel Committee has acknowledged her contribution to science, but they can't give her an award because they do not give out awards posthumously.
Mihran Hovnanian 5 years ago
LIFE STORY: The Race for the Double Helix... Tells the story very well and Rosalind's part in detail... starring Juliet Stevenson and Jeff Goldblum
fin_evander 5 years ago
Was that the lady whose theories/photos led directly to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA? I wish this one said what she did
Just JoLynn 5 years ago
Yes, her x-ray photos showed Watson and Crick that DNA has a double helix structure, and with that knowledge they were able to make sense of their work and the rest is history.
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Janice Veldman 3 years ago
how very ironic men get awards in other things all the time posthumously .... I think the Nobel Committee is biased
Linda Hart 5 years ago
Poor excuse. They need to take the Nobel Prize away from Watson and Crick and give it to it's rightful owner. They would do it if she were a man.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
There is a university that bears her name in North Chicago, Illinois, USA.
#14
Mary Anning, the first paleontologist. She basically discovered that dinosaurs were a thing, and wasn't recognized for it until 2010 when the royal society of London named her as one of the 10 most influential British woman of science.
Mommyofboth 5 years ago
I didn't know about her until last year when my daughter brought her history homework out. I was amazed!
Giles McArdell 5 years ago
I learnt about her at school, in the 1980s, perhaps I had some progressive teachers.
Pamela Blue 3 years ago
It seems to take men a LOOONG time to figure out that women have brains, doesn't it? Their poor fragile egos just couldn't bear to have a woman be smarter than they were.
Bob Spillman 4 years ago
Anning is a great addition. Her intenseinterest in collecting seashells is believed to have led to the "She catches seashells on the seashore . . ." lyric.
James Heartney 5 years ago
I have a 1960 Giant Golden Book, "Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Reptiles" which has both an illustration and an account of Mary Anning discovering an ichthyosaur, plus a discussion of her further discoveries. So I don't think it's correct to say no one knew about her till 2010.
Just JoLynn 5 years ago
It doesn't say no one knew about her, it says she wasn't recognized for her work until 2010, which is a big difference.
Load More Replies... Avery S Alberico 5 years ago
She was "guest-starring" in an episode of Dino Dana (2nd spinoff of Dino Dan). Very fitting
#15
Madam C. J. Walker developed black hair care products and marketed them through her business she founded which ended up making her the first female self made millionaire.
Marija Dominyka 5 years ago
Watch "Self made" on Netflix - it's about her. I absolutely loved it, amazing woman!
MagicalUnicorn 5 years ago
I watched amazing show with Octavia Spencer about her life. What an amazing strong woman! <3
#16
Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most prolific artists (Judith Slaying Holofernes is probably her most recognisable painting) of the 17th century at a time when obviously women weren’t encouraged or allowed in the very male-dominated space. She was a pro at only 15, working all over and she was the first woman to be accepted into the Art Academy (forgive the bad English translation but the Italian name escapes me) in Florence. There’s a lot more to this of course but she took her rapist to court & he was found guilty after a seven month long trial. She had no time for female submissiveness which is reflected in her art. Her story is remarkable & her art is utterly compelling.
WhatEvenIsLife 5 years ago
I first learned about her through a book I read in high school, became obsessed, and wrote about her for my senior paper. She didn't just take her rapist to court - she was literally tortured to "prove" the veracity of her claims. She could have lost the ability to paint, but did it anyway.
Claire Daccurso Latham 4 years ago
As a graduate with a BFA and an art teacher, I was never taught about her or learned about other female artists until many years later!
#17
Mileva Marić Einstein (Albert Einstein's first wife), a brilliant physicist, whose contribution to Albert's work cannot be emphasized enough.
Cynthia Bonville 5 years ago
And there is much evidence she came up with the theory of relativity herself. But that's blasphemous.
I'm lay sheep in China 5 years ago
I've read that she's more intelligent than him but didn't caught the eye of Nobel peoples
#18
The Allied codebreakers at places like Bletchley Park during WWII. They worked incredibly long, tedious, and stressful hours and were a major contributor to the war effort and military intelligence, but their work didn't even receive official recognition from the British government until 2009, 64 years after the war ended.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
The entirety of project Ultra remained classified until 1974, those involved could not even talk about it before then. They were certainly known from the numerous books and documentary films about the project that followed. It was nice that they received a [belated] statement of thanks though.
Stannous Flouride 5 years ago
The British/PBS series "The Bletchley Park Circle" and its follow-up "The Bletchley Park Circle in San Francisco" are set in the post WW2 era and has the women solving crimes by noticing patterns that are oblivious to the police and FBI. Of course they cannot explain their actions based on their still-secret wartime activities to family or the police and must battle the dismissive attitudes from the male detectives and the suspicious attitudes from spouses and others in that extremely sexist era. It's quite well done.
#19
Henrietta Lacks.
She saved millions of lives and made a critical contribution to the world of medicine, but unless you're in the medical field — you've probably never even heard her name.
Henrietta Lacks was a young, black, mother of five when she died in 1951 after being diagnosed with an aggressive cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins. Doctor George Gey was working at Hopkins at the time, trying to culture cells in the laboratory. Lacks' cells were among dozens sent to his lab, but they were the first to ever survive and grow. Her cells, a unique and aggressive type, were later described as one in three billion.
Scientists called these resilient cells "HeLa" — taking first two letters of "Henrietta" and "Lacks." HeLa cells were used to test the polio vaccine, develop in vitro fertilization, and several chemotherapy drugs among hundreds of medical advances.
Grown and sold around the world, Lacks' legacy lived on in her cells: they have traveled to space, they have been embedded in a nuclear bomb. But for decades, the Lacks family had no idea.
Giles McArdell 5 years ago
The Lacks never got any money for this either while Big Pharma continues to rake it in.
Natasha Bettis 5 years ago
A few years ago, HBO based a film on the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks".
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
If memory serves, her cells were actually taken without her knowledge or consent while she was still living.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
But they could not have done it without her.
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#20
Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper in 1903. As soon as the patent expired, it became standard in all cars. She attempted to sell it while she had the rights to it, but most manufacturers refused to believe it was a feature of value, and it is likely her being female colored their lack of enthusiasm.
Dippin Dot 5 years ago
Lots of controversy over windshield wipers! In the 50's there was a legal battle between the creator of the intermittent windshield wipers and the Ford Motor Company... (there's a movie called Flash of Genius that is about this).
Stannous Flouride 5 years ago
To be fair, automobile companies are not hesitant about cheating either sex out of their inventions. Look up Robert Kearns who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. He shopped it to Ford and Chrysler who "miraculously" had it in the next year's models. After battling to protect his patent for 25 years, in 1990 juries granted him $10.1m from Ford and $18.7m from Chrysler. Greed and rapaciousness know no limitations by sex or race.
Pamela Blue 3 years ago
Not surprised at all. Men in those days (and many now) couldn't imagine that a woman had a brain. They were only supposed to cook meals, raise children and dote on their husbands.
Celtic Pirate Queen 5 years ago
I believe it was also her design that Tucker used for the ground-breaking "encapsulated" window.
#21
Virginia Hall has a building named after her at the CIA. She was an American woman from Baltimore who went to Europe in the 1930s, lost her leg in a shooting accident, then proceeded to become a leader in the French Resistance and master of disguise, all with a wooden leg. The book A Woman of No Importance is about her and came out last year.
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
Pretty much all stories of those who were in the Resistance during the war are fascinating.... definitely worth a look.
Stephanie Miller 5 years ago
A movie about her is now in production. Can't wait to see it.
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Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
Sounds incredibly interesting, I'm going to try to get that book.
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
do read it. What she achieved in real life makes James Bond movies a walk in the park.
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Cecilia Payne, discovered what universe is made out of... And don't even get a mention in textbooks
#23
Anna Connelly invented the fire escape in 1887.
That same year, Josephine Cochrane invented the dishwasher.
#24
Eleanor Marx - Maybe overlooked because of her dad. She played an important role in British Trade Unions which forced the move from a 12 hour working day 6 days a week to an 8 hour day 5 days a weekend. Those extra hours to go on a walk, play Xbox, learn something new or just chill is a pretty big contribution.
#25
Inge Lehmann was a Danish seismologist. She discovered P' waves (waves that reflect off of the inner-core), confirming that the earth has a solid inner-core and a liquid outer-core.
#26
Dr. Georgeanna Seeger Jones
Dr. Jones singlehandedly organized the field of Gynecological Endocrinology. While at John’s Hopkins with her husband, Dr. Howard Jones and Drs. Roberts and Steptoe, she devised the hypothesis of follicular hyper stimulation, which produced more than one egg per cycle. Her later discoveries led to increases in viability of In Vitro Fertilization.
Per Wikipedia : As a resident at Johns Hopkins, she discovered that the pregnancy hormone hCG was manufactured by the placenta, not the pituitary gland as originally thought. This discovery led to the development of many of the early over-the-counter pregnancy test kits currently available. On 1949, Jones made the first description of Luteal Phase Dysfunction and is credited to be the first in using progesterone to treat women with a history of miscarriages, thus allowing many of them to not only conceive, but to deliver healthy babies
She also served as a Dean of the College of Pontifical Sciences, advising the Vatican of matters of Gynecology and Conception.
Her husband always said “She’s the smarter one.”
She was also a great friend.
Angela Rickett 5 years ago
Thank you Dr. Georgeanna Seeger Jones. Because of your work, we have our beautiful son, Benjamin!
Rachael Maree 5 years ago
Thank you Dr Jones, your work has formed the foundation of my current fertility treatment
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
"Advising the Vatican on matters of gynecology and conception." Wow.
#27
The Soviet Air Force's 588th Night Bomber Regiment. An all-female bombing wing during WWII that had to make do with a lot of outdated equipment.
However, they were a MAJOR thorn in Germany's side, taking out encampment after encampment. Their secret? They struck by night and cut their engines right before bombing the enemy. This gave them the nickname "Night Witches." Comparatively, I'm pretty sure they had one of the higher survival rates when it came to bombing squadrons.
Sabaton actually based one of their songs off of them in their album "Heroes."
Evil Little Thing 5 years ago
IIRC they had to climb out the plane and throw bombs down by hand, too.
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
This is not, fortunately, correct. They were using Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes. While obsolete, they did have bomb rack mounts (under their lower wing) for up to 350kg load of 50 or 100kg bombs.
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Squirrelflightisawesome 5 years ago
There's a book about them called night witches. It is amazing. And they flew more missions than the men and they had terrible planes. They're amazing.
Amy Broderick 5 years ago
There's a great book - The Huntress by Kate Quinn that these amazing women are a huge part of. Same author as The Alice Network
#28
Daphne Oram - first ever composer to produce electronic sound. She pioneered electronic music and lead the path for music today. She even wrote a piece called “Still Point” that she was never able to perform live because of sexism by her peers and she never heard it live before she died. But it was performed for the first time in 2018 using a replica of a machine Daphne had created to electronically manipulate a live orchestra.
Clara Knaub 5 years ago
I hate that people wouldn’t let her piece be performed because she was a girl. At least it was performed in 2018.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
I don't know if it made the world "better" but electronic music has made a significant impact on modern culture.
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#29
Tapputi-Belatekallim, who lived around 1200 B.C. in Babylonia. She is considered the world's first chemist. Her filtering and distillation of various materials is the world's oldest mentioned still.
Birma Gustafsson 5 years ago
You can never keep a brilliant woman down, no matter the century!
Nikolaj Mielche 4 years ago
I'm pretty sure the existence of lists like this is prove otherwise.
Load More Replies... #30
Margaret Hamilton and her team wrote all of the math it took to get to the moon.
GaySloth 5 years ago
I think another woman did the math though, know her name, just forgot
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#31
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
She was super influencial to early rock musicians like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and so many more. Johnny Cash even said that she was his favorite singer and she was also one of the first to play around with heavy distortion on her electric guitar. She's called by some "The Godmother of Rock and Roll" but I guarantee you that the average person has never heard of her.
Roxy Eastland 5 years ago
I could see a question about her name, but when I clicked reply it disappeared. To clarify, she was a nun and her music was Christian, but really cool. Once you've seen a video of her (try youtube) you will have no doubt she was the originator of rock 'n' roll.
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
"Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Queen Latifah, Prince: Stage Names or U.S. Peerage? Coming up at 11!"
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#32
Frances Oldham Kelsey. She stopped thalidomide from getting widespread use in North America, and saved countless children from life-altering birth defects.
Romenriel 5 years ago
She stood her grounds for months while she was belittled and called "stubborn bureaucrat". She had some seriously ingenious intuition.
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
Be careful of that wording (which smacks of "women's intuition") when really research and experience led to an evidence-based conclusion.
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#33
Sonia Greene.
As an immigrant single mother living in New York in the early 1900s, she became a successful publisher of several magazines, but also worked like three other jobs and managed to earn enough to move herself and her daughter into an upper-middle class house.
She eventually married an unemployed weirdo shut-in of a man child named H.P. Lovecraft. And while she financially provided for herself, her daughter, and her husband, she also handled editing, publishing, and distribution of Lovecraft's work through her already successful magazines. She even ghost-wrote some of Lovecraft's stuff. On some occasions, Lovecraft would just lose stories he was working on (because he was a disorganized mess) and she would just rewrite his stories from memory so he could publish them. Sometimes he would come up with ideas that he was too lazy to realize into full stories, so she would write them herself for publication. She was so good at it that there is actual debate over how many of Lovecraft's stories are actually written by Greene, and how many of those may have been her original works published under her husband's name.
This chick had like three overlapping successful careers while raising a kid, and then just decided to raise Lovecraft and manage his career too, just for fun.
Sonia Greene is arguably more responsible for the success of H.P. Lovecraft than Lovecraft himself.
Without Greene, Lovecraft is just some weird loner, buried in a pauper's grave, leaving behind a bunch of unremembered, half-finished, handwritten ideas for spooky tales. Instead, his name is basically synonymous with an entire genre of cosmic horror fiction.
#34
Henrietta Leavitt. She was an astronomer at Harvard and discovered a type of star called a Cepheid. Cepheid stars all pulse at the same rate. That lets us know how far away they are. Because of her, we were able to determine how big the universe is along with many, many more things concerning its properties.
Giles McArdell 5 years ago
Fascinating, I never quite grasped how Cepheid's helped us know the distance, I had somehow missed the fact they all pulse at the same rate.
#35
Clara Barton - Helped with getting medical supplies during the Civil War and then founded the American Red Cross. A legend in my books.
The Differently Wired Girl 5 years ago
She founded the American REd Cross, which is similar, but not the same as the Red Cross.
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#36
Bertha Benz, wife of Karl Benz (Mercedes-Benz) was his first investor, first product tester and the first person to take a real road trip— during which the brakes were acting up, so she stopped in at a shoemaker’s shop, asked him to cut and fit some pieces of leather, and thus became the inventor of brake pads.
Caro Dose 5 years ago (edited)
Thank you, M O'Connell, for providing the missing photos of the women.
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#37
Harriet Beecher Stowe is an integral character in American history, she wrote Uncle Tom's cabin, exposing the cruel reality of slavery to the American public.
#38
Astronomer here! The foundations for modern astrophysics and what we understand about the universe did not come from the pre-eminent astronomers of the 19th century, but rather a group of women called the Harvard computers. This is because at the time only men were allowed to use the telescopes and Harvard was experimenting with the first astrophotography, and they hired women to look at those first images, and it then became the women who made the first discoveries about things like the hydrogen line in stars, spectral binaries (two stars orbiting each other so close you can’t see them by eye), and half a million variable stars, some of which were used as “standard candles” to determine the size of the universe. All years before real computers of even electricity! (Oh and two of the women were deaf.)
Among my favorites I want to shout out to Williamina Fleming who ran the group of women- she started out as a single mom maid to the observatory director, who got mad at his (male) students’ analysis of the images and proclaimed “my maid could do better!” And she did! She not only ran the group and discovered many variable stars and nebulae, she discovered a supernova (SN 1895B) that I studied in my own research published this year! Good science never dies! (Oh and in her spare time she made dolls as a hobby and was friends with Andrew Carnegie’s family and gave one to Carnegie’s daughter.)
Trust me these are amazing astronomers! I could go on all day about them and all they discovered!
#39
Big Mama Thornton.
She sang the hit "Hound Dog" a few years before Elvis Presley made it popular, but I believe because of the color of her skin, she couldn't get as much recognition. I still prefer her version over Elvis.
Andrew Gibb 5 years ago
When some reporter came to talk to her in '77 when Elvis died, and asked her how she felt about him having made millions and her only $100 for this song. Her comment, which was pure Winnie Mae Thornton, was "I'm still here to spend my hundred bucks."
#40
Stephanie Kwolek, the woman who invented the Kevlar bullet-proof vest. She began working on Kevlar technology in 1964, and perfected it by 1971.
#41
Carol Kaye, the First Lady of bass playing. She played over 10,000 sessions, including albums from Frank Sinatra, Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, and the Monkees. I can thank the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the subreddit for educating me about her.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
I remember watching reruns of "the monkees" tv show mid '80's as a kid. Loved Davy Jones.
#42
Queen Tamara of Georgia. She now represents the Georgian nation in Civilization VI, but before that, not a lot of people knew about her. And whenever she is mentioned, she is mentioned as queen, but she was given the title of KING because she was recognized as an equal monarch (her husbands didn't have any royal titles). This is an undisputed fact in Georgian historiography, IDK about western scholars, but whenever she is mentioned on the internet or mainstream, would it be Wikipedia or a video game, like CIV VI, she is denied her lawful title and that just pisses me off!
M O'Connell 5 years ago
In the time period, a queen was simply the wife of the king. She was the sovereign, and therefore deserved the title of King. She neutralized the opposition to her rule (as a woman), and enlarged the Georgian empire.
Load More Replies... #43
Dolores Huerta cofounder of the United Farmworkers Union with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s. She was a civil rights activist and advocated for immigrant worker rights by boycotting white grape owners. Farmworkers we’re exposed to insidious pesticides, poor working conditions and awful pay. Her determination has changed the landscape of working rights and influenced many to stand up against unfair treatment and discrimination. She has historically lived in the shadow of Chavez, but now can have some recognition because of her involvement in countless social justice movements. She is a civil rights icon and should get the credit she deserves .
Mme de Poppadom 5 years ago
Ugh, syntax, people! Is it white grapes, or white owners? DOWN WITH RIESILING!
#44
Agent 355
We still don't know her true identity to this day, but that was the code name of one of the first American spies. Some historians dispute whether it was an actual person or just code for when a woman presented useful information. If that's the case then Agent 355 could be multiple women that had a huge influence on history during the birth of America.
#45
Globally? Perhaps Kate Sheppard, who was the leader of the Women's Suffrage Movement in New Zealand when New Zealand became the first country in the world to give Women the right to vote.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
Fun-fact! The US State of Colorado granted women the right to vote in 1893 too :)
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#46
Mary Todd Lincoln. I know she went absolutely mad, which wasn't all her fault, but she was the one who really pushed her husband (Abraham Lincoln for those not from America) to keep moving up the political ladder, and ultimately shaped what the first lady of the U.S is. Not sure he would have become president without her influence. She had a lot more ambition than he did. Fun fact- she also liked to bake! Look up her recipes, guys. Her almond cake sounded delicious and it was supposedly one of her husband's favorite desserts.
#47
Michele Mouton:
It's just auto racing, not super important in the grand scheme of things but holy [crap]! She was probably the best rally driver and hill climber of her era and one of the best ever.
She was also very involved in innovating All-Wheel-Drive racing and safety standards.
And she raced in the Group B class which takes a level of skill, guts, and complete disregard for safety that has never been, and never will be matched.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
Group B was some pretty insane stuff. There are tons of videos of the 1982 to 1986 Group B Rally races online, watch a few of them :)
BusLady 5 years ago
From this photo, I would have taken her for a politician, not a race driver.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
The picture was taken at the Geneva Motor Show in 2011
Load More Replies... #48
Jane Addams
She was a major reformer in the early 1900’s and is the founder of social work. She established settlement houses, most famously Hull House in Chicago. Instrumental to women’s rights and the roles they play that helped lead to women’s right to vote. She really focused on ways that women could be central to community building and many of her ideas have been influential even today.
#49
Mary Leakey - palaeoanthropology 1913-1966 She discovered the Laetoli Site and Footprints. Discovered 15 species of animals. While working with her husband full time on a day he was sick she went out in the field and discovered the first Proconsul skull. She also was the reason for a while new Genus discovery and naming. Zinjanthropus; aka The Nutcracker man. Her husband and son always get a ton of credit, but she was the driving force.
#50
Constance Markievicz
Constance Georgine Markievicz, known as Countess Markievicz, was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament, and was elected Minister for Labour in the First Dáil, becoming the first female cabinet minister in Europe.
Constance fought in the 1916 Rising in Dublin, where on the first day of fighting she shot a Dublin Metropolitan Police officer dead at St Stephen’s Green. Markievicz was arrested and quickly sentenced to death by the British authorities. But her sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment on account of her gender. She famously told her captors: “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me”.
Fashion advice attributed to her was: "Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver."
Roxy Eastland 5 years ago
I'm going to guess that short skirts in her day were not quite the same as what we'd consider a short skirt now, and her advice was more about not having skirts long enough to tangle around your ankles while you were getting up to shenanigans.
#51
Livia. She was Augustus’ wife and considered by many to be the main power behind the throne, as well as the reason why the Roman Principate formed as it did, which shaped history for the next 1000 years
Jaded Queen 5 years ago
Ah! This is so true for a lot of kings and kingdom sy. Either the wife or the mother is the driving force and real brains of the operation. It can never be proven or isnt documented on paper. But if u look hard enough there will examples like this all over even if just in fables and speculation. U can't silence an entire half of the population. Even when the husband didn't knew some badass women in power pulled a lot of strings behind the scenes and people were just too stupid to comprehend what was happening
#52
Belva Lockwood - one of the first female lawyers in the US and ran for president in the 1880s.
#53
Hetty Green
She might’ve been a bit overboard on the whole “frugal” thing (even messing up her own family) but she helped a lot of people. Even though she was known as The Witch of Wall Street.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
Is she the one that did not want to pay the doctor bill for her sons broke leg and tried to fix it herself even though she was a millionaire?
Jaded Queen 5 years ago
He had to be amputated. I find it funny though how she helped a lot of people and newyork city itself but didn't take his sons life seriously. I mean be miserable but don't gamble with life that to when u don't need to and with ur own kid. Geez, hatty u hardcore and mental...
Load More Replies... What do you think ?
diego salvarani 5 years ago
Hedy Lamarr, was an actress, inventor. She was part of 30 films in an acting career spanning 28 years, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum.At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, intended to use frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.[9] She also helped improve aviation designs for Howard Hughes while they dated during the war. Although the US Navy did not adopt Lamarr and Antheil's invention until 1957, various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Recognition of the value of their work resulted in the pair being posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Hedy_lamar...6926d7.jpg 
Colin L 5 years ago
I was looking for "Jane Cooke-Wright" who pioneered chemotherapy treatments and raised the overall life expectancy for the human race. She was the first black woman to become head of the American Cancer Society. She was one of the first black women to graduate from Harvard Medical school, and she became a MD in the 1940s. Know a cancer survivor? Don't thank god, thank Jane.
just a hamilfan 5 years ago
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton supported the revolutionary war was married to alexander hamilton after the war her life began to fall apart, she found out her husband had cheated on her, shortly after her little sister (Peggy Schuyler) and her oldest son (Phillip Hamilton) ha both died. 4 years later her husband was shot in a duel and died. she lived fifty years more, finding nearly thousands of pages of her husbands writing, with her older sister (angelica Schuyler church) by her side until angelica passed away, she raised funds for the Washington monument, spoke out against slavery, started the first private orphanage in new york city raising hundreds of children and did everything she could to preserve her husbands legacy. yet after all she did, alexander hamilton got a big fancy grave and she only got a slate. look her up incase I missed anything Screenshot...f3cad4.png 
Cynthia Bonville 5 years ago
It would be good to add Ms. Elizabeth Peratrovich who reminded Alaskans of the Bill of Rights and fought for the rights of all people in Alaska. She was instrumental in the rights of people who had been subjected by colonization and then implementation of Jim Crow laws without facing a regional civil war. If it had been different Alaska would have been segregated until statehood, instead we were freed.
DramaDoc 5 years ago
Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland was the first woman to write a full-length, original English language play c. 1613. She frequently gets [unfavorably] compared to William Shakespeare--who was already an established playwright in his 40s compared to Cary, who was just 17. Her extant play, The Tragedy of Miriam, is a really interesting example of a Senecan tragedy (think Hamlet, Othello, etc); however, Cary's villain (who rivals Iago for sheer Machiavellian-ness) not only is female, but also gets away with it. 220px-Prob...9ed29e.jpg 
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
So many names missing. Where's astronomer Caroline Herschel ? She developed one of catalogues of astronomical objects, for example - the NGC, New General Catalogue. In 1802. Which is used still to this day, tho it was, obviously, expanded since then.
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
Also, she is the literal first woman (that history remembers, at least) that was actually paid for scientific work, by the state and crown, no less!
Load More Replies... Freya the Wanderer 5 years ago
Where's Annie Jump Cannon, whose pioneering cataloging work was instrumental in the development of modern stellar classification? We have her to thank for the OBAFGKM system.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
I think it is rather annoying that a post about "Women Overlooked in History" deliberately hid the last 23 women on the original list.
diego salvarani 5 years ago
Hedy Lamarr, was an actress, inventor. She was part of 30 films in an acting career spanning 28 years, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum.At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, intended to use frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.[9] She also helped improve aviation designs for Howard Hughes while they dated during the war. Although the US Navy did not adopt Lamarr and Antheil's invention until 1957, various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Recognition of the value of their work resulted in the pair being posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Hedy_lamar...6926d7.jpg
Colin L 5 years ago
I was looking for "Jane Cooke-Wright" who pioneered chemotherapy treatments and raised the overall life expectancy for the human race. She was the first black woman to become head of the American Cancer Society. She was one of the first black women to graduate from Harvard Medical school, and she became a MD in the 1940s. Know a cancer survivor? Don't thank god, thank Jane.
just a hamilfan 5 years ago
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton supported the revolutionary war was married to alexander hamilton after the war her life began to fall apart, she found out her husband had cheated on her, shortly after her little sister (Peggy Schuyler) and her oldest son (Phillip Hamilton) ha both died. 4 years later her husband was shot in a duel and died. she lived fifty years more, finding nearly thousands of pages of her husbands writing, with her older sister (angelica Schuyler church) by her side until angelica passed away, she raised funds for the Washington monument, spoke out against slavery, started the first private orphanage in new york city raising hundreds of children and did everything she could to preserve her husbands legacy. yet after all she did, alexander hamilton got a big fancy grave and she only got a slate. look her up incase I missed anything Screenshot...f3cad4.png
Cynthia Bonville 5 years ago
It would be good to add Ms. Elizabeth Peratrovich who reminded Alaskans of the Bill of Rights and fought for the rights of all people in Alaska. She was instrumental in the rights of people who had been subjected by colonization and then implementation of Jim Crow laws without facing a regional civil war. If it had been different Alaska would have been segregated until statehood, instead we were freed.
DramaDoc 5 years ago
Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland was the first woman to write a full-length, original English language play c. 1613. She frequently gets [unfavorably] compared to William Shakespeare--who was already an established playwright in his 40s compared to Cary, who was just 17. Her extant play, The Tragedy of Miriam, is a really interesting example of a Senecan tragedy (think Hamlet, Othello, etc); however, Cary's villain (who rivals Iago for sheer Machiavellian-ness) not only is female, but also gets away with it. 220px-Prob...9ed29e.jpg
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
So many names missing. Where's astronomer Caroline Herschel ? She developed one of catalogues of astronomical objects, for example - the NGC, New General Catalogue. In 1802. Which is used still to this day, tho it was, obviously, expanded since then.
Michał Jastrzębski 5 years ago
Also, she is the literal first woman (that history remembers, at least) that was actually paid for scientific work, by the state and crown, no less!
Load More Replies... Freya the Wanderer 5 years ago
Where's Annie Jump Cannon, whose pioneering cataloging work was instrumental in the development of modern stellar classification? We have her to thank for the OBAFGKM system.
M O'Connell 5 years ago
I think it is rather annoying that a post about "Women Overlooked in History" deliberately hid the last 23 women on the original list.
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