This is a portrait of Emilie du Chatelet (d. 1749), a brilliant mathematician and physicist from the French Enlightenment. Multi-talented (by age twelve she knew six languages, she studied fencing and astronomy), Emilie supported her scientific interests like buying textbooks and lab equipment by using her math abilities to succeed at gambling. One of her […]
French Mathematician and Physicist – Emilie du Chatelet Read More »
This painting from 1494 is possibly a depiction of the famed Lucrezia Borgia appearing as Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The oxymoronic nature of such a depiction is obvious if we have heard of the many legends (incest, poisonings, etc) of this _femme fatale_. Of course, many of the tales are completely unproven, and probably can
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The Ancient Mediterranean didn’t produce many women writers: society left little room for girls’ education and artistic creativity. One important exception was the Hellenistic poet Anyte (writing about 300 BCE), whose epitaphs survive as poignant markers of moments of grief felt by people now long-dead. Compared to her male contemporaries, Anyte’s subjects included more women
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Many Ancient Greek and Roman physicians (male) developed intricate theories about the female body which dovetailed neatly with their assumptions of women being inherently flawed and lesser than men. Among the most hysterical (this is a pun: “hysteria” comes from the word for “uterus,” and hysteria was a medical diagnosis for a grab-bag of female
Physicians of the Ancient World Read More »
Great disoveries in mathematics and sciences ought to be celebrated, but a challenge for most of us non-specialists is understanding what exactly it is that we are supposed to be admiring. Amalie “Emmy” Noether (d. 1935) was, according to many great minds (such as Albert Einstein), the most important female mathematician in history. Her accomplishments
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The smallpox vaccination has been one of the greatest contributions science has made to better the human condition. Although Edward Jenner has justly earned credit for his development of the vaccine, an 18th-century British aristocratic woman named Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) also deserves recognition. Montagu was a “Turkophile,” and published many writings critiquing the confining
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This photograph of American leader Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was only recently uncovered – it was purchased by the Library of Congress at an auction in 2017. Tubman’s skills and accomplishments were truly astonishing – the backbone of the Underground Railroad, Tubman made thirteen missions into the South to liberate enslaved people. She was the first
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The Middle Ages were a lot bawdier than most people imagine. Although modern society finds a Christian-infused culture abrasively at odds with a robustly sexual one, such was not the case in Western Europe 500 years ago . . . Into this conversation, may I introduce the Welsh poetess Gwerful Mechain (c. 1460-1502) Centuries before
Gwerful Mechain’s “Poem to the Vagina” Read More »
Ching Shih might have been the most powerful and successful pirate in history. Born in 1775, she was brought up as a prostitute in the wanning years of the Qing Dynasty. As the ability of the central government to provide stability dissolved, ad-hoc mafia-esque alliances among profiteers arose, and piracy proved to be one of
Ching Shih – The Most Powerful and Successful Pirate in History Read More »
Empress Catherine the Great of Russia (r. 1729-1796) is part of history’s extremely small club of super talented and successful female political leaders. She considered herself both a fan of the Enlightenment and an autocrat – like other women in her situation, she was aware her position would constantly be threatened because of her gender,
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These gold dentures from the Ancient Etruscan culture seemed to have been popular on the northern portion of the Italian Peninsula from the late eighth through the mid sixth centuries. Even though extant Etruscan writings are limited to inscriptions, archaeological evidence suggests that they were worn to show off the wearer’s elite status, and those
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Hormones, as author Randi Hutter Epstein relays in_Aroused: the History of Hormones and How They Control Just about Everything_ really do a lot — from metabolizing food, to regulating sleep and mood swings, to the act of sex, to prompting our immune systems. Hormones can make our lives both really amazing and really terrible. So
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow and Radio-Immunosassay Read More »
Shown here is a carved relief of the Ancient Roman goddess known as Bona Dea. Usually she holds a cornucopia in one hand and a bowl in the other from which snakes feed. These attributes demonstrate her role in fertility, for which she was worshipped throughout the Roman centuries — mainly by women of all
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Suicide has been met with approbation, criticism, horror, or distain, depending on the culture and circumstance of the act. In the Ancient Mediterranean world, elite people who were condemned to death by the state – or facing eminent death by political opponents – thought of suicide as a more honorable path. Pictured here is “Sofonisba
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Meet Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin, a.k.a. “La Voisin.” Judging from her matronly countenance and placid expression, one might guess this late 17th-century French woman might have led a staid if uninteresting life . . . But nothing could be further from the truth. After her husband’s business collapsed, La Voisin turned to fortune-telling as a way
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Tomorrow on September 29, 2019, Americans can celebrate coffee day. But the introduction of The Greatest Morning Beverage was not a forgone conclusion in many parts of the world. In England, coffee-houses entered the scene in the 1650s, and quickly became popular — London alone had 82 by 1663. The image you see here suggests
Women’s Pushback on Coffee in Early Modern England Read More »
Here is a portrait of a young Sophie Germain, the French mathematician whose celebrated work involved the properties of elasticity and number theory (especially prime numbers). When we read about Germain, we quickly encounter a narrative that focuses on the multiple limitations placed on her life: her parents initially discouraged her scholarship, she was banned
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Here is Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, one of the first women (alongside biochemist Marjory Stephenson) to be innagurated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1945 (as I wrote yesterday, the Society began in 1663, so this achievement was long in the coming). Lonsdale’s work was in material chemistry — proving, for instance,
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“The Kiss of the Enchantress,” painted by English artist Isobel Lilian Gloag (c.a. 1890) depicts a monster from Ancient Greek mythology called a Lamia. Like so many stories about horrifying females, the Lamia’s backstory involves a grizzly subversion of the ideal woman — she destroys children rather than nurtures them, and seduces men in order
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So this lady looks unusually serene, especially in light of the fact that she’s using the blood of her own severed foot (!!!!) to write a letter to her husband. This is the heroine Hypermnestra, and in the Roman poet Ovid’s rendition of her tale, she pleads with her husband to come save her from
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