When we talk about great explorers, we mostly think of men : Christopher Columbus, Jacques Cartier or even Marco Polo… Yet women are not to be outdone ! Many have contributed to improving our knowledge of the world, despite the social norms of their time, which did not make their explorations any easier…
Sometimes dressed as men and often with great daring, they have traversed new territories, broken records and shaped today’s world. Here are 5 portraits of women explorers!
Summary
Jeanne Barret : Around the world dressed as a man
In the early 1760s, Jeanne Barret (1740-1807) entered the service of the botanist and physician Philibert Commerson. Initially recruited as a governess, she gradually proved to be a valuable aid to the researcher orderly, curious and methodical, she became his right-hand woman.
In 1767, Commerson was invited to take part in the first-ever round-the-world voyage organised by the French Royal Navy under Bougainville. He invited Jeanne Barret to accompany him, but alas, at the time, women were forbidden to be part of the crew of the King’s ships. No matter! Jeanne Barret became ” Jean Baré “ : she cut her hair, bandaged her chest, wore baggy clothes and presented herself as Commerson’s valet. Thus disguised, Jeanne Barret managed to join the expedition.
Around 1770, the expedition ran out of supplies and had to call at Isle de France (Mauritius). Commerson and Jeanne Barret disembarked there and continued their work until the botanist’s death three years later. Jeanne then opened a cabaret and met a French naval officer, whom she married. She returned to France with him around 1775. She died in 1807.
Amelia Earhart : first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
Born in 1897, Amelia Earhart was interested in medicine she enlisted during the First World War as an orderly for the Toronto Red Cross and then, at the end of the war, took courses at Columbia University in New York to become a nurse.
But in 1920, a first flight changed her aspirations ! She developed a passion for flying, paid for flying lessons alongside her studies and bought her own biplane.
The 1920s marked a turning point in aviation: Charles Lindbergh made the first flight from New York to Paris in 1927. The following year, Amelia Earhart was asked to be a passenger on a new transatlantic flight, making her the first woman to cross the ocean by plane. But this role of companion did not suit Amelia, who felt that she had been “nothing more than a sack of potatoes” and promised herself that she would make the crossing alone.
On 20 May 1932, Amelia Earhart took off solo from Canada and, 14:56 later, landed in Northern Ireland. The challenge was successful : she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean ! A feat she achieved to ” draw attention to the fact that women, too, are capable of flying “.
Buoyed by this success, Amelia Earhart multiplied her flights. In 1935, she was the first person (men and women combined) to fly from Hawaii to California. Two years later, she embarked on a round-the-world voyage accompanied by navigator Fred Noonan. Unfortunately, on the last third of the journey, all trace of her plane was lost on 2 July 1937. It is assumed that his plane crashed into the sea.
Nellie Bly : Around the World in 72 Days
Eizabeth Jane Cochrane was born in Pennsylvania in 1864. Passionate about writing but too poor to afford an education, it was thanks to her audacity that she landed the job that would change her life. Reacting to a sexist column in the Pittsburg Dispatch listing ” What young girls are good at “, she wrote a particularly well-written letter to the editor. Seduced by her style, he offered her a job at the paper and gave her the pseudonym Nellie Bly. Passionate about the working class, Nellie Bly invented investigative journalism by taking a job in a factory to report from the inside.
In 1887, Nellie Bly was recruited by Joseph Pulitzer at the New York World. For her first story, she infiltrated a women’s insane asylum by posing as a patient. After ten days in the hospital, her report revealed the appalling conditions in which the patients were treated, and led to a drastic change in practices.
The following year, she set out to beat the round-the-world record set by Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg in ” Around the World in Eighty Days “. After taking a year to find funding, she began her journey in November 1889, covering 40,000 kilometres in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds!
During her journey, she met Jules Vernes who, on learning of the young woman’s success, would write :
” Never doubted Nellie Bly’s success,
her intrepidity predicted it.
Hurrah ! For her and the director of the World !
Hoor ! Hooray ! “
In 1895, she married an industrialist and distanced herself from journalism to devote herself to business. However, she would return to her first love by becoming a war correspondent during the First World War and then again defending the workers’ cause and women’s rights until her death in 1922.
Gertrude Bell: archaeologist, explorer… and spy!
Gertrude Bell’s CV is enough to impress anyone ! Archaeologist, explorer, writer, politician, diplomat and even spy… it’s not to say that her life hasn’t been full!
Born into a middle-class British family, she studied at the prestigious University of Oxford, where she became the first woman to graduate in modern history. Her studies gave her a taste for travel: she went to Germany, France, Italy and Constantinople, as well as India, China, Korea, Japan, Canada, the United States and the Middle East, a region that particularly captivated her.
In 1909, she took part in the archaeological mission to Babylon and in 1915 she joined the British intelligence agency in Cairo, where she took part in the capture of Baghdad by the British in March 1917.
Her knowledge of the land enabled her to help map out the new Iraqi state while working to make Faisal I the country’s first ruler. She oversaw the opening of the National Museum of Iraq and chaired the Baghdad Library.
Weakened by depression and health problems, she died in July 1926 from an overdose of sleeping pills.
Isabelle Eberhardt : the nomadic life
Isabelle Eberhardt was a citizen of the world, to say the least! Born in Switzerland in 1877 to Russian parents, she married a Frenchman and spoke Russian, Italian, German, French, Arabic and Turkish!
But in this multicultural world, her heart leaned towards Algeria, where she settled with her mother in 1897. Working alongside the Algerians, she converted to Islam and dressed as a man in order to be able to live more freely.
When her mother died, eshe chose to lead a nomadic life and met her future husband, a French Muslim suspected of spying. Very critical of the colonial system, she was expelled from Algeria. When she arrived in Marseille, she married her partner and obtained French nationality, which enabled her to return to Algeria.
She worked for the newspaper El Akhbar and was sent as a war reporter to cover the war with Morocco.
On 21 October 1904, the couple were living in Aïn Sefra when the town was submerged by the flooding Oued. Their house was devastated and Isabelle’s body was found seven days later.
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