Women in the archive

Begin with these twenty public records. Each separates biography, Matria’s interpretation and bibliography. The app contains a wider archive, including entries still awaiting sufficient sources.

• Maria Montessori

  Developed an educational method based on observing children, using learning materials and preparing environments for independent activity.

• Faith Bandler

  Helped lead the campaign for Australia's 1967 referendum through organising and advocacy for Aboriginal rights.

• Joy Buolamwini

  With Timnit Gebru, published Gender Shades in 2018, measuring errors in three commercial gender-classification systems across skin-type and gender groups.

• Timnit Gebru

  Coauthored Gender Shades and On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots and founded the Distributed AI Research Institute.

• Tricia Hersey

  Founded The Nap Ministry and wrote Rest Is Resistance, connecting collective rest practices with criticism of racism and compulsory productivity.

• Wangari Maathai

  Founded Kenya's Green Belt Movement in 1977, organising women to plant trees and protect their livelihoods. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.

• Leymah Gbowee

  Helped organise Christian and Muslim women in the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace during the civil war.

• Elinor Ostrom

  Studied how communities govern shared resources and published Governing the Commons. She shared the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

• Toni Morrison

  Wrote novels including The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

• Kartini

  Wrote letters arguing for girls' education and criticising forced marriage and the seclusion of women in her Javanese social world.

• Mary Wollstonecraft

  Published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792, arguing that women should receive education as rational beings.

• Rosalind Franklin

  Used X-ray diffraction to investigate DNA, producing Photograph 51 with Raymond Gosling. She also researched coal and viruses.

• Anni Albers

  Created woven artworks, taught textile design and published On Weaving in 1965.

• Margaret Crane

  Invented the first home pregnancy test, Predictor, by turning an existing laboratory procedure into a kit women could use at home.

• Augusta Savage

  Created sculptures including Gamin and Lift Every Voice and Sing, taught artists in Harlem and directed the Harlem Community Art Center.

• Faith Ringgold

  Created story quilts combining painting, fabric and written narrative, including Tar Beach, which she also made into a children's book.

• Lise Meitner

  With Otto Frisch, explained nuclear fission after interpreting experimental results obtained by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann.

• Tu Youyou

  Led research that identified artemisinin as an antimalarial compound, drawing a clue from Chinese medical texts and testing extraction methods.

• Katherine Johnson

  Calculated and checked flight trajectories at NASA for missions including early US crewed flights and Apollo.

• Dorothy Vaughan

  Led NACA's segregated West Area Computing unit from 1949 to 1958 and developed expertise in FORTRAN programming.