The Encyclopedia of Girls provides biographies of historical and contemporary girls from all cultures. Our scope begins with the very first homo sapiens and extends to the present, as a constantly evolving resource for anyone to utilize. We believe that knowledge is power – and knowing about real girls in the past and present is key to inspiring future generations of changemakers, peacemakers, and scholars.
Our encyclopedia is constantly evolving, with our current focus on documenting all the girls listed in the Sites of Girlhood project.
If you have an entry to contribute, or have recommendations for additions to an existing entry, please email share@girlmuseum.org
Augusta Ada Byron, otherwise known as Ada Lovelace, was destined for greatness. One hundred years before Alan Turing and long before the 1960’s black NASA computer scientists, Ada was the first to write a computer program. Born on the 10th of December, 1815, Ada was...
Full Name: Ahyoka Birth Date: Unknown Death Date: Unknown Ahyoka was the daughter of Cherokee native Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary, and the first person to learn the written form of the language referred to as Tsalagi Gawonihisdi. Ahyoka’s name is...
Full Name: Amanirenas Birth Date: 60s/50s BC Death Date: 10 BC Location: Meroë, Sudan Monument Type: Historic/Residence While many people know about Cleopatra, few are aware of her contemporary, Amanirenas. Like Cleopatra, Amanirenas faced the encroaching Roman Empire...
Our story begins in Hong Kong where Amber was born in 1991, before returning to the United Kingdom. During her school years, she became involved with coding at the age of 9; a skill that would later serve her well. She also got an early start on practicing her...
Born: 4th October 1999 Site: University of Cambridge, England Amika George was born on 4th October 1999, in Kerala, South India and was raised in the UK. Whilst in secondary school, George read an article about how many young people in Britain miss school due to...
Birth Date: January 3, 1905 Death Date: February 3, 1961 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA Monument Type: Historic/Residence A future actress was born in January 1905. The child’s name was Wong Liu Tsong, yet moviegoers would know her as Anna May Wong. Both of...
Born in Germany in 1929, Anne Frank’s family was Jewish. Her first decade witnessed the rise of the Nazi party, which grew to power by blaming Jews (and others) for Germany’s post-World War I problems. High unemployment and poverty were severe, making Adolf Hitler’s...
Full Name: Annie Goodrich Ellsworth Smith Birth Date: January 5th, 1826 Death Date: January 21st, 1900 In the year 1844, Annie Goodrich Ellsworth chose the words used on the world’s first telegraph message following Congress’ approval of a bill to build the first...
Born on September 24, 1940, Arati began her life in Bengal, in what was then British India. Her family was middle class Bengali Hindu, and Arati had one older brother and one younger sister. At the age of 2, she lost her mother. With her father enlisted in the armed...
Full Name: Artemisia Gentileschi Birth Date: July 8, 1593 Death Date (if known): c. 1656 Location: Naples. Italy Monument Type: Historic/Residence One of the most famous quotes attributed to painter Artemisia Gentileschi is “My illustrious lordship, I’ll show you what...
Full Name: Bessie Stringfield Birth Date: March 5, 1911 Death Date: February 16, 1993 Bessie Stringfield was born on March 5, 1911. Her early life has been a confusion to many. There are two accounts of her early life told, one was Stringfield was born Betsy Beatrice...
Born in London on 22nd March 1808, Caroline sheridan Norton was part of an influential and grand but poor family, the Sheridans. One of three sisters, they were enticing to those around them. All the siblings were considered beautiful and intelligent, with a tendency...
Full Name: Casquette Girls Date: Existed from 1704-28 Location: Ship Island, Mississippi Monument Type: Historic/Residence Photograph Caption/Credit: Watteau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons When the French began colonizing North America in the early 1700s, they...
Born sometime between 1518 and 1525, Catherine was the younger child of Edmund Howard and Jocasta Culpeper. She was niece of the third Duke of Norfolk, and cousin to Anne Boleyn. Her connections meant she was of fairly noble birth. Catherine grew up at Chesworth...
Oldest child to Silas and Lucinda Parker, Cynthia was born in Illinois sometime around 1825. By 1833, her family had uprooted and moved to Texas as her father became enlisted in the military there. The Parkers were awarded a settlement that abutted Comanche territory....
In 1915 an English journalist, Dorothy Lawrence (1896-1964) was biking through France. She cycled to Creil, a French base camp, to report on World War I (1914-1918). Dorothy went to France to “see what an ordinary English girl without credentials or money, can...
Full Name: Edna St. Vincent Millay Birth Date: February 22, 1892 Death Date: October 19, 1950 Location: Millay Room, Whitehall Inn, Camden, Maine Monument Type: Historic/Residence Cora Lounnella Millay gave birth to Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1892. The flourishing...
Egtved Girl (13??-1370 B.C.E.) is the name given to the remains of a young woman found in Egtved, Denmark. The Egtved Girl lived in the Bronze Age (1700-500 B.C.E.), when people first built weapons and jewelry out of bronze instead of stone. Based off of the time of...
Full Name: Eleanor “Ellie” Simmonds Birth Date: November 11, 1994 Location: Walsall, West Midlands, England Monument Type: Historic/Residence Born on November 11, 1994 in England, Eleanor “Ellie” Simmonds has already achieved a lot in her young life. Ellie was born...
Birth Date: 25 July 1829 Death Date: 11 February 1862 Location: London, England, UK Monument Type: Historic/Residence With a few strokes of a brush and many hours of painstaking work, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal found herself to be one of history’s most famous muses—she...
Birth Date: 23rd March 1882 Death Date: 14th April 1935 Location: Noetherstraße, 91058 Erlangen, Germany/University of Erlangen Monument Type: Historic/Residence Walking into a math class can be a frightening experience for anyone! The formulas, calculations, and...
Full Name: Ethel Hedgeman Lyle Birth Date: February 10,1887 Death Date: November 28, 1950 Ethel Hedgeman Lyle was born on February 10, 1887, in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1904, she graduated from Sumner High School with honors. She was the first student from Sumner to...
Eulalia Guzmán Barrón was born on 12th February 1890 in San Pedro Piedra Gorda, Mexico but moved to Mexico City with her family when she was 8 years old. From an early age, Guzmán was aware of gender inequality and was determined to challenge the idea that women were...
Fahma Mohamed was born in The Netherlands in 1996 and moved to Bristol, England with her family when she was 7 years old. At school Fahma attended an after-school session that discussed Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of...
Full Name: Frances Mary Buss Birth Date: 16 August 1827 Death Date: 24 December 1894 Location: London NW5 2DB, UK Monument Type: Plaque/Marker Frances Mary Buss was a campaigner for women’s rights and a pioneer of education for women. At the age of 10, Frances...
While information and literature exists on male gladiators, there is also some evidence of female gladiators throughout the ancient Roman empire. In A.D. 117, at the height of the Roman empire the Romans controlled land from North Africa to Great Britain and parts of...
Born in the 1700s, Hannah More was the fourth of five daughters. Her family moved frequently due to her father’s occupation. As a result, Hannah and her sisters met a variety of people from different economic and religious backgrounds. This greatly influenced her...
Born on 9th December 1914 to Dona Aurora Rodriguez, Hildegart was a girl that was always going to be an achiever. Her mother was not married to her father, they met only once. Rather, as a believer in eugenics, Dona chose her partner carefully in order to ensure that...
Full Name: Huang Wensi Birth Date: May 22, 1989 Location: Guangdong, China Monument Type: plaque/marker When people think of what a girl may want to be when she grows up, a variety of roles or jobs may come to mind, but they rarely ever include any sports–certainly...
Birth Date: August 6, 1886 Death Date: November 25, 1916 Location: Lewis, New York Monument Type: Historic/Residence In 1886, Inez entered the world as the firstborn child of John Milholland and Jean Torry Milholland. Two more children, Vida and John, joined the...
Standing on Tower Hill in London, would you think of the girls? Hundreds of girls have likely been on this site, which dates back to Bronze Age settlements and, later, Roman villages. Yet its fame lies in violence – it is the site of public executions of high-profile...
Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, USA in 1906, Josephine Baker grew up in a diverse, low-income neighborhood. At eight years old, she began working to help support her family and by twelve years of age she dropped out of school to work full-time....
Birth Date: 2007 Location: Irvine, California USA Monument Type: Event It is an unfortunate reality that not only within America but across the world, homelessness and housing insecurity remain incredibly large problems. Unsurprisingly, tackling it proves to be an...
Born on July 10, 1998, Kimia Alizadeh’s family are Iranian Azerbaijani, also known as Iranian Turks. At the age of 16, Kimia burst onto the stage by winning gold in the women’s Taekwondo 63 kilogram class at the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics. During the games, she...
Born in Hanover, New Hampshire in December 1892, Laura Bridgman was a member of a hardworking farming family. At 2 years old, she contracted scarlet fever. Two of her siblings died from the illness. Laura survived but she lost most of her senses including sight,...
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) is the author of the Little House books. The Little House series tells her story of growing up in the Midwest. As a girl, Laura journeyed across the United States in a covered wagon, moving around Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and...
Full Name: Linda Carol Brown Birth Date: February 20, 1943 Death Date: March 25, 2018 Linda Carol Brown was born on February 20, 1943, in Topeka, Kansas. She is the oldest of three daughters. Growing up, she lived in a diverse neighborhood for the most part. However,...
Lisa Teresita Pacheco Macuja-Elizalde was born on October 3, 1964 and is a Filipino prima ballerina. In 1984, she broke barriers for Fillipino dancers by becoming the first soloist foreigner to join the Kirov ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Not only did she dance...
Lucy Terry Prince. Oil painting by Louise Minks. Like many slaves of Colonial America, Lucy Terry came to Rhode Island from Africa as a very young child in the early 1730s. Purchased by Ebenezer Wells of Massachusetts, Lucy grew up in a time of turmoil with local...
Birth Date: December 23, 1867 Death Date: May 25, 1919 Location: Delta, Louisiana, USA Monument Type: Historic/Residence In the aftermath of the bloodshed associated with the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), and amidst the backdrop of Reconstruction, a future entrepreneur...
In 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest ever Nobel Prize Winner for her activism fighting for the educational rights of all children. The story of how Malala came to be one of the best-known activists in the world is nothing short of remarkable. Born in Mingora,...
Maria Montessori was born on 31st August, 1870 in the provincial town of Chiaravalle. Her father was a financial manager and her mother was a woman who prized education above all else. Maria’s mother was well schooled and an avid reader. This was unusual for an...
By thepaparazzigamer Marsai Martin and Miles Brown at the 85th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade in Hollywood CC BY 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87269362 Born Caila Marsai Martin in Plano, TX, she is best known for her role as Diane in ABC...
Mary Anning was born in the English seaside town of Lyme Regis, Dorset in 1799.She lived with her family along the Jurassic Coast which became a tourist hotspot in the late 18th century, when local residents started scouring the coast for ‘curiosities’ to sell to...
When people think of the stereotypical “Native American princess” they immediately think of Pocahontas, as a young woman who struggled to establish peace between the Powhatan tribe and Virginia colonists. However, few have heard about Mary Kittamaquund, the daughter...
Full Name: Mary Pickford Birth Date: April 8, 1892 Death Date: May 29, 1979 Location: Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, Hollywood, California, USA Monument Type: Historic/Residence Mary Pickford’s background did not predict her future as a celebrity. An irony was that Mary...
Full Name: Mary Shelley Birth Date: August 30, 1797 Death Date: February 1, 1851 Location: Somers Town, London, England, UK Monument Type: Historic/Residence On August 30, 1797, the author of Frankenstein was born as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Mary’s mother was the...
Birth Date: 22 February 2004 Location: Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Monument Type: historic/residence Soffia Gomes da Rocha Gregório Corrêa, better known by her stage name MC Soffia, is a Brazilian-born rapper and musician who rose to fame as a young girl...
Michaela ‘Chaeli’ Mycroft was born on the 30th August 1994 in South Africa. At 11 months old, she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy; a group of lifelong conditions that affect movement and coordination. From an early age, Chaeli set out to be an ability activist,...
Full Name: Millicent Fawcett Birth Date: 11 June 1847 Death Date: 5 August 1929 Location: Parliament Square, London/2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 6DP, UK Monument Type: Event Millicent was 72 years old when all the members of the British Parliament gathered...
Please note that we have elected not to include a picture of Minnesota Minnie in respect for the wishes of descendant tribes. In 1931 construction crews working on Highway Route 59 came across a human skeleton in along the eastern shore of Prairie Lake near Pelican...
When Moni was 9 years old her elder sister got married. Her older sister was 12 at the time. Just over 2 weeks after the wedding, her sister returned home unrecognizable. She had become thin and her body was covered in bruises. She subsequently found out that the man...
Full Name: Murasaki Shikibu Birth Date: c. 978 Death Date : c. 1016 Location: Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan Monument Type: Historic/Residence Murasaki Shikibu is known as the author of what is believed to be the first complete novel in the world, The Tale of Genji....
Born in Kew, New South Wales, Australia in 1915, Nancy Bird became the youngest Australian woman to gain a pilot’s license at the age of 19. As a girl, Nancy had a fascination with flying. At age 13, Nancy dropped out of school to help her father at his general store....
Full Name: Nellie Bly Birth Date: May 5, 1864 Death Date: January 27,1922 Location: Blackwell’s Island, New York, USA Monument Type: Historic/Residence The daring Nellie Bly came into existence as Elizabeth Jane Cochran in May 1864. Known affectionately as “Pink,” she...
Her poems provide a window into Black girls’ culture, slavery, and the emergence of abolitionism before and during the American Revolution. Her statue sits in Boston, Massachusetts, as a memorial to her achievements, which have been debated from her youth until today....
March 1713 was a time when women were expected to stay home, pursue domestic work, marry. It was a time when women were defined and controlled by the men they were related to and the ones they associated with. March 1713 was a time when the actions of a woman could...
Born in 600 A.D., in Taiyuan, China, Pingyang was the third daughter of Li Yuan, an influential Sui Dynasty military commander. During Pingyang’s young life Yangdi, a harsh and unfair ruler, was the emperor of China. As a teenager Pingyang married Chai Shao, the...
Born in 1996, Qian lost both her legs in a car accident at the age of four. In a later interview with China Daily, she stated, “I just remember that when I woke up, my legs felt very cold. I said, ‘Mum, put my shoes on for me,’ but my mum didn’t say anything. Her...
When Queen Sālote (1900-1965) imagined leadership, she thought “hard work had a lot to with it, and strong character, also kindness.” With those words in mind, Queen Sālote ruled Tonga (1918-1965). The Kingdom of Tonga is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean known as...
Rosa Luxemburg was born in March 1871 in Poland. At the time Poland was controlled by the Russian Empire. She was the youngest of five children, born to a lower middle-class Jewish family. Her father was a timber merchant and her mother was descended from a notable...
Full Name: Rosemary Lassig (Lluka after marriage) Birth Date: August 10th, 1941 Death Date (if known): November 1st, 2017 Rosemary Lassig (surname Lukka after marriage) was an Olympic swimmer born in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia on August 10th, 1941. Rosemary...
Born in 1943, Sadako Sasaki was just two years old when the American pilot Paul Tibbet flew his B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, over Hiroshima, Japan. On August 6, 1945, by order of then President Harry S. Truman, Paul and his crew dropped one of two atomic bombs over the...
Called both the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Barcelona Cathedral, this towering Gothic edifice erected from 1298 to 1420 CE stands in memoriam to Eulalia, a young girl who became co-patron saint of Barcelona. According to Catholic tradition, Eulalia was a martyr...
Samantha was born in Maine, United States and lived during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In November 1982, Yuri Andropov became leader of the Soviet Union. It was during this time that Samantha, aged ten in December 1982, decided to...
Born on September 19, 1990, Samina Baig grew up in the Hunza region of Pakistan. This is a unique region of the north, renowned for spectacular natural scenery but also its people. According to the region’s website, at least three quarters of the region’s people can...
My first introduction to Scarlett Curtis came through her brilliant anthology ‘Feminists Don’t Wear Pink & other lies’. That book helped to kickstart my feminist journey in a purposeful way, so I am thrilled to be able to share a little more of the wonderful...
Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876-1948) was the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. The Queen allowed her residence in Hampton Court, Faraday House. Sophia descended from Indian royalty. Her grandfather, Ranjit Singh ruled the North of India from 1801 to 1839....
Full Name: Sophie Magdalena Scholl Birth Date: 9 May 1921 Death Date : 22 February 1943 Location: The Walhalla Temple, Walhalla Strasse 48, Germany Monument Type: Monument/Memorial “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give...
Tarenorerer, also known as Walyer by the sealers of Bass Strait, was thought to have been born circa 1800 near Emu Bay, Tasmania into the Tommeginne tribe. Accounts of her life suggest she was abducted in her teens by Aborigines of the Port Sorell region and was sold...
Born in 1991, Thandiwe Charma grew up in Zambia, in the midst of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. She saw first hand how it devastated the lives of the people she knew who both did and did not have the disease. When some of her teachers died from the disease, there became a...
“One Christmas Eve, while Mari Jørgensdatter was lying in bed, the Devil came visiting. Having awakened Mari, he insisted that she go to Kirsti. Mari did as the Devil requested. The Evil One asked Mari if she would serve him, while the two of them headed off on the...
Born in Chang’an (now Xi’an, Shaanxi Province) in around 628, the life of Princess Wencheng Li holds major cultural significance for both Chinese and Tibetan society. Her name roughly translates to “Princess Civilizer.” Born into a branch of the Tang Dynasty royal...
In September 1987, a pair of swans broke free and flew away while Xiujuan was bathing them. Though very ill at the time, she went looking for them. When she heard fluting swan calls from the opposite of a river, she waded through the water toward them. The two birds were soon found, but Xiujuan went missing. Her body was later retrieved from the river. Unfortunately she drowned from exhaustion in her search and came to be known as China’s first environmental protection martyr. Near her grave in the reserve, a memorial hall has been built to tell her heroic story to visitors.
Full Name: Yayoi Kusama Birth Date: 22 March 1929 Death Date (if known): Still Living as of March 2023 Location: Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan Monument Type: Historic/Residence “Great minds think alike!” A relatively common expression found in various languages across the...