History books tell the tales of intrepid explorers, historians, sailors, and scholars who circumnavigated straits, discovered unknown lands, and bravely ventured beyond the known world, pointing their compass toward the unknown to land in the future.
Well, microhistory tells us that in the vast ocean of discoveries, hidden in the folds of time, there are also women. Explorers, botanists, travelers, aviators, who fought to pursue their desire to push beyond geographical, cultural, and social boundaries.
We present 7 of them who we are sure you’ll love!
Nellie Bly and the world tour (1864-1922)
Nellie Bly was an American journalist, passionate about investigative journalism, who managed to travel around the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, emulating Phileas Fogg, the Around the World in 80 Days main character.
At the age of 24, she proposed to her publisher to attempt this feat. He replied that, being a woman, the presence of a man would be necessary for any eventuality. Nellie replied that she would leave alone, at the same time as a man, certain that she would arrive first. And so it happened.
During her journey she visited Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Ceylon.
Women who made travel history: Margaret Moth, the photographer (1951-2010)
She was the first female photographer in Oceania to produce dangerous reports for CNN in war zones.
Her passion for photography began at the age of 8, when she received her first camera as a gift.
A skydiving enthusiast, the “lady in black”, nicknamed for her heavy eyeliner, during a firefight in Sarajevo, where she was covering the conflict in the 90s, she was seriously injured in the face by a gunshot and it took several operations and about two years for her to regain her speech.
But she continued to work as a photographer until her death from cancer in 2010.
Junko Tabei, the climber (1939-2016)
The daughter of a printer, she was the first woman to climb Mount Everest in 1975. In 1992, she was the first to reach the summit of all Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each continent.
Her passion for the mountains blossomed at the age of 10, during a school trip to Mount Nasu. Considered a very expensive sport, her family did not initially support her passion. It was only after her university studies in English literature that she founded a mountaineering club for women only, the Joshi-Tohan Club, in 1969. During those years, together with her husband, also a climber, she conquered the highest peaks in Japan and those of the Alps.
Isabelle Eberhardt, the explorer (1877-1904)
Isabelle Eberhardt, born in Geneva, dressed as a man to have the rights that were not recognized to women at the time. She spoke French, Russian, German, Italian and learned Latin, Greek and Arabic.
At 20 she traveled to Africa and traveled through its north for years, to learn more about Islamic culture.
She called herself Mahmoud Saadi, disguised as a man and before that she had used another pseudonym, Nicolas Podolinsky, with which she signed articles and stories in French magazines. She died at 27 in a flood in the Sahara when, following exceptional rainfall on the slopes of the Atlas, the rivers overflowed and the clay and straw houses were swept away by the flood.
Women who made travel history: Amelia Earhart, the Aviator (1897-1937)
Amelia decided she would become a pilot in 1920, following her first flight experience, a ten-minute ascent with pilot Frank Hawks in Long Beach, California.
In 1937 she decided to fly around the world. This feat had been accomplished by an American team in 1924, but hers was the longest: a 47,000 km route near the equator. The first attempt was unsuccessful, as an accident damaged her Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan then set off east from Miami, arriving at Lae, on the east coast of Papua New Guinea. On July 2, 1937, they set off for their next stop, Howland Island, in the middle of the Pacific, between Australia and Hawaii. But the aviators never reached their destination.
Jeanne Baret, the “circumnavigator” (1740-1807)
She was the first woman to circumnavigate the Earth disguised as a man, since at that time the French army did not allow women aboard any of its ships.
Jeanne learned to recognize and collect plants from an early age, acquiring vast knowledge of botany, so much so that she was nicknamed “the herb woman”. She worked as a governess in the home of the naturalist Philibert Commerson who became the official botanist at the French court and was charged, together with Bougainville, with exploring new territories for the Crown. In order to leave with Commerson, Jeanne disguised herself as a man, becoming Jean.
In Brazil Jeanne discovered a climbing plant that she called bougainvillea in homage to the captain of the expedition and upon her return she compiled a catalog of the new plants she had encountered during the voyage.
Women who made travel history: Mary Kingsley, the adventurer (1862-1900)
Mary Kingsley was one of the greatest explorers of West Africa. She studied her brother’s books on her own and became fascinated by primitive tribes and sacrificial rites. She undertook a journey in West Africa, travelling to Congo, Sierra Leone and South Africa.
When she arrived in Gabon, Mary dedicated herself to the search for the cannibal tribe of the Fang, settled on the banks of the Ogoouè River. She managed to find them and was hosted in their village. She was the first Westerner to study cannibals and to return unharmed. Following this experience she wrote a book and several articles and undertook a second trip to Africa, to Cape Town where she worked as a volunteer to assist the Boer prisoners of war. But after only two months she contracted typhus and died.
And would you have been so brave as to turn the world of travel upside down?! Would you make travel history?
