Unit Study: Exploring the French Revolution
By the time the French Revolution ended, the class and political landscapes of the Old World has been completely redrawn to value democratic political participation and individual rights. All of this makes it a particularly fascinating period of history to dig into with your high schooler.
The rise of the proletariat launched the bloody end of the Old World and the beginning of a new one, and most people date the revolution’s official beginning to the opening of the Estates General, on May 5, 1789.
The French Revolution was the 18th century revolution that mattered. Across the Atlantic, the revolt of Britain’s colonies raised a few eyebrows, but it was the revolution in France that reshaped the European world. When the revolution began, Europe was dominated by virtually impenetrable class structures and wealthy aristocrats; by the time the French Revolution ended, the class and political landscapes of the Old World has been completely redrawn to value democratic political participation and individual rights. All of this makes it a particularly fascinating period of history to dig into with your high schooler.
SET THE STAGE
To appreciate the impact of (and motivation for) the French Revolution, you need to understand the world that preceded it. A big piece of that world is the pre-Enlightenment notion of royalty, captured in candy-colored opulence in the film Marie Antoinette. As you watch it, talk about the expectations of royalty: They really believed they ruled because some divine being wanted them to and had no problem living the high life regardless of the conditions in which their citizens were living. Were they evil or just completely oblivious? You can decide for yourself. And then you can watch 1938’s La Marseillaise to see the beginnings of this world’s unravelling.
CONSIDER THE SCOPE
Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities carries the reader from the first rumblings of the French Revolution to its bloody, battered climax through the story of two lookalikes who find themselves at the center of revolutionary action. As you read, think about how the revolutionaries are perceived — and how their aims and actions change over the course of the story. How do passion-fueled individuals become a violent mob?
For a non-fiction take, Alexis de Tocqueville’s The Ancien Régime and the Revolution isn’t a contemporary account (Tocqueville was born in 1805), but it’s a near-contemporary look at both the promise of democracy and the failures of democracy leading up to and in the wake of the French Revolution. As you read, think about what interests Tocqueville so soon after the revolution: How did this happen?
Finally, pick up The New Regime by Isser Woloch — it’s a bit staid, but it does a great job chronicling the Revolution’s major, world-changing effects (for better and worse). Divorce, universal education, revised penal codes — as you read, make a list of all the things we now take for granted that originated with the French Revolution.
GET PERSONAL
Once you’ve got a handle on the story of the Revolution, slow down and explore its impact on individual lives. You’ll probably have to read the subtitles, but the French film Danton, depicting the last weeks of Revolution hero-turned-public enemy number one Georges Danton, offers a meaningful look at the dark side of the Revolution (with a bonus commentary on late 20th century Poland). Think about the nature of betrayal in a world of shifting allegiances and power. Get outside of Paris with Daphne du Maurier’s The Glass Blowers, which focuses on the brutal royalist counter-revolution in the 1790s. The Broussard family (based on du Maurier’s real-life ancestors) are caught up in the prospect of revolutionary changes but find it hard to adjust to post-war hardships.
Unit Study: Queen Victoria
You could spend years digging into the life of the British ruler who gave the Victorian age its name and still make new discoveries, but consider these resources a delightful starting point for a high school history homeschool unit study.
Celebrate Victoria Day on May 22 by learning more about the British queen it’s named for.
When Alexandrina Victoria took the throne of England in 1837, she was a teenager inheriting a seriously tainted monarchy. By the time of her death in 1901, the Queen had become a global symbol of the British Empire, the time period had become eponymous with her name, and she would successfully redefine royalty for the modern world. Some of this was luck, some of this was the people who surrounded her, and some of it was the sheer stubborn determination of Victoria herself. You could spend years digging into Victoria’s life and still make new discoveries about the 19th century queen, but consider these resources a delightful starting point.
READ
Who Was Queen Victoria? BY JIM GIGLIOTTI
This is a predictably solid entry in the reliable Who Was elementary biography series, covering Victoria’s life from unhappy childhood to triumphant Jubilees. (Elementary)
My Name Is Victoria BY LUCY WORSLEY
Worsley imagines Victoria’s life through the eyes of her forced companion, John Conroy’s daughter — also named Victoria — who is brought to Kensington Palace to spy on the Queen-to-be but finds herself sympathetic instead. (Elementary)
Victoria: May Blossom of Britannia, England, 1829 BY ANNA KIRWAN
This historical fiction novel is part of the Royal Diaries series, so its focus is on Victoria’s unhappy princess period, when she dreams of being Queen as a way to escape her miserable life at Kensington Palace. (Middle grades)
Victoria Victorious BY JEAN PLAIDY
Jean Plaidy is less sparkly than usual in this historical novel, and like so many writers, she dwells on the romance of the early half of Victoria’s reign, when she is a young queen in love with her husband, but this first-person story is a thoughtfully researched introduction to Queen Victoria’s life. (Middle grades)
Queen Victoria BY LYTTON STRACHEY
For the post-World War I view of Queen Victoria, turn to Lytton Strachey’s very un-Victorian biography, a classic, snarky history as full of royal gossip as historical details. (High school)
Victoria BY DAISY GOODWIN
This YA-friendly historical fiction biography focuses on Queen Victoria’s first two years as Queen of the British Empire, bringing to life the larger-than-life personalties who defined the early years of her reign, including the very charismatic prime minister Lord Melbourne, Victoria’s cousin (and future husband) Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Victoria herself. (High school)
Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire BY JULIA BAIRD
If you’d like a frothy biography that reads like a well-researched version of “Keeping Up with the Hanovers,” pick this up: Baird writes a little like a romance novelist and holds firm to her theory that Victoria secretly married her servant John Brown, but it’s a fun read. (High school)
We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals BY GILLIAN GILL
Even though Victoria reigned for half her life without Albert, his influence on her was so great that he permanently shaped her ideas (for better and worse) about what a monarch, a parent, and a woman should be. This dual biography illuminates the most important relationship of Victoria’s life and the constant tension between power and family love that it inspired. (High school)
Victoria’s Daughters BY JERROLD M. PACKARD
It was not easy to be the offspring of the ruler of the British Empire and her perfectionist partner, and this group biography explores the lives of the five women who called Queen Victoria mother. It’s a sad and fascinating history of female life on top tier of British society, with a special interest in the life of rebellious Princess Louise. (High school)
Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert BY STANLEY WEINTRAUB
I’m always telling my students that had Albert lived as long as his wife, we would probably be calling the 19th century the Albertine Era. Weintraub does a great job painting a vivid picture of the reform-minded, ethically intense polymath who proved the perfect romantic and political partner for the woman he was steered to marry since childhood. (High school)
The Letters of Queen Victoria BY QUEEN VICTORIA
One of the best ways to get to know someone is through her own words, and Victoria is no exception. The Letters of Queen Victoria put the Queen’s best foot forward, clearly demonstrating how the chief figure of the Victorian era wanted to be seen by the people in her world. (And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that her children re-edited these letters, too.) (High school)
WATCH
Victoria
Jenna Coleman’s Victoria is neither prim nor proper, but she’s certainly interesting in this fairly faithful BBC adaptation created by Daisy Goodwin. OK, it veers a little toward the romantic with heartthrobs cast as middle-aged Melbourne, aristocratic Albert, et al, but who are we to complain about a little eye candy in period costume?
The Young Victoria
Emily Blunt is the lonely little girl crowned Queen of England in this dreamy biopic focused on the years 1836 to1840. Paul Bettany is a particularly disreputable Lord Melbourne, Mark Strong is a particularly vile John Conroy, and Miranda Richardson is a conflicted Duchess of Kent, but Blunt steals the show with her Victoria torn between the desire for freedom and independence and longing for a real family.
Victoria the Great
This 1937 film focuses on the early years of Victoria’s reign. The film, commissioned by Edward VII in honor of his great-grandmother, includes sets and costumes that are accurate reproductions of actual items in the British museum.
Mrs. Brown
Judi Dench is glorious as a middle-aged Victoria who cannot seem to get her Queenly groove back after the death of Prince Albert. Only Albert’s Highland servant, John Brown, cheers her up, but friendship between a Queen and a rowdy Scotsman seems pretty scandalous.
Victoria and Abdul
Judi Dench reprises her role as Victoria in another historical account of the Queen’s fondness for her servants: This time, it’s focused on Victoria’s late-in-life friendship with her Indian servant Abdul Karim.
Ohm Krüger
For a totally different perspective, screen this World War II German propaganda flick about the Boer War, which paints Queen Victoria as a ruthless alcoholic who tricks the Germans into signing an unfair treaty.
PBS Empires: Queen Victoria
This series focuses on the politics and geography of the Victorian empire, which ruled one-fifth of the world’s people during Victoria’s 64 years on the throne.
Movies for Women’s History Month
Celebrate Women’s History Month this March with a homeschool movie marathon.
March is Women’s History Month, and every year, it feels more than ever like a time to think about how far women have come in the modern world — and how far we still have to go. These films will inspire and engage as you explore women’s history.
One Woman, One Vote
Susan Sarandon narrates PBS’s American Experience documentary on women’s rights, a well-rounded and informa- tion-rich introduction to women’s suffrage in the United States. Bonus: This documentary does a really nice job of exploring the role of black women in the suffrage movement.
Iron Jawed Angels
Hillary Swank and Frances O’Connor star in this sometimes weirdly directed but ultimately very compelling story about the U.S. battle for women’s rights. There are some invented historical incidents, but the overall story is rooted in real events.
Nine to Five
Maybe an indictment of women’s treatment in the 1980s workforce shouldn’t be this hilarious, but sometimes laughter really is the best social commentary.
Not for Ourselves Alone
Ken Burns takes on the women’s movement with this documentary focused on the lives of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, two of U.S. history’s best known fighters for women’s rights.
The Magdalene Sisters
This film about the Irish institutions where“wayward women” were sent — and often abused — definitely deserves its R rating, so you may want to preview it. But since the last of these institutions didn’t close until the 1990s, it’s a movie worth watching with your older students.
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
The women who — more than capably — took on “men’s work” during World War II are the subject and stars of this poignant, powerful documentary.
A Midwife’s Tale
This fascinating documentary explores the life of an 18th century Maine midwife and the 20th century historian who discovered her diary and brought it to light.
14 Women
This sometimes overly earnest but still engaging 2007 documentary focuses on the — wait for it — fourteen female Senators in the 109th United States Congress.
Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl: Immigrant Women in the Turn-of-the-Century City
Before women won the right to vote, immigrant women crusaded for safer and more reasonable work conditions in booming factories and sweatshops. This short documentary illuminates their struggle — and victories.
The Burning Times
Some feminist scholars call the persecution of witches that occurred from the 1400s to the 1700s the “Women’s Holocaust” because of the huge number of women who were executed during this time. This documentary considers the history, causes, and effects of this problematic period in women’s history.
Homeschool Unit Study: The History of Spies
The end of winter is the perfect time for a secular homeschool unit study that takes a chronological deep dive into some of history's most celebrated spies.
This winter is the perfect time to take a chronological deep dive into some of history's most celebrated spies.
Francis Walsingham (ca. 1532–1590)
Queen Elizabeth’s adviser was the first great English spymaster, and the culmination of his secret intelligence work was the frame-up, capture, and execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1586. Most of Walsingham’s efforts were directed against the Catholics, whom Walsingham, a staunch Protestant who vividly remembered the Protestant purges initiated by Elizabeth’s sister and predecessor, feared and mistrusted. Walsingham organized a spy network that would impress modern day intelligence agents, complete with forgers who could copy any seal, an army of letter interceptors, complex ciphers to protect his own mail, and spies everywhere.
Read This:
The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I by John Cooper
Benjamin Tallmadge (1778)
The so-called Culper Ring, led by Benjamin Tallmadge, tracked Tory troop activities in British-occupied New York City by actually joining Tory militias, feeding crucial information to the colonial army. They’re also credited with helping to bring down Benedict Arnold.
Read This:
Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose
Mary Bowser (1860s)
Mary Bowser joined the Richmond Underground, a movement that worked to get enslaved people, Union prisoners, and Confederate deserters out of occupied Richmond, Virginia. When she managed to get work at the Confederate White House, Bowser was able to pass important confidential information on to the Union.
Read This:
Spy on History: Mary Bowser and the Civil War Spy Ring by Enigma Alberti and Tony Cliff
Belle Boyd (1860s)
The Confederates had their spies, too, and 17-year-old Maria Isabella Boyd was one of them. Under guard for shooting a drunken Union solider who had insulted her and her mother, Belle charmed secret information out of her guard and passed it on to the Confederate troops.
Read This:
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
Sidney Reilly (1890s-1925)
The “Ace of Spies” was the model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. The handsome, womanizing Russian-born British agent spied on 1890s Russian emigrants in London, in Manchuria on the cusp of the Russo-Japanese War, and participated in an attempted 1918 coup d’etat against Lenin’s Soviet government. Reilly disappeared in the Stalinist Soviet Russia of the 1920s.
Watch This:
Margarethe Zelle (1914-1917)
Better known as Mata Hari, Zelle became one of the most famous spies in history even though chances are pretty good that she never actually did any spying: She was recruited by the French and by the Germans, both of whom saw potential in her globe-trotting work as an exotic dancer, but she doesn’t appear to have given any intelligence to anyone. Still, when the Germans outed her as a double agent, the French had her arrested and executed tout suite, despite a lack of actual evidence.
Read This:
Femme Fatale: A New Biography of Mata Hari by Pat Shipman
Virginia Hall (1930s-1940s)
“The limping lady” — so named because she’d shot herself in the foot and 1932 and replaced her amputated lower leg with a prosthetic limb — volunteered her services as a spy in occupied France, coordinating the activities of the Resistance under cover as a correspondent for the New York Post. Hall’s prosthetic foot, which she named Cuthbert, provided a convenient hiding place when smuggling top secret documents.
Read This:
The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female Spy by Judith L. Pearson
Klaus Fuchs (1940S-1950S)
Fuchs was a nuclear physicist who left Germany in 1933 to come to England, where he worked on “Tube Alloys,” the British atomic bomb project, before joining the Manhattan Project in the United States. Fuchs hated the Nazis, but he had complicated feelings about the post World War II world — which led him to feed information to contacts in the Soviet Union. Fuchs was arrested for espionage in the 1950s and imprisoned.
Read This:
The Spy Who Changed the World: Klaus Fuchs, Physicist and Soviet Double Agent by Mark Rossiter
Melita Norwood (1962-1999)
Norwood worked as the assistant to the director at a British atomic research center for 37 years before her employers realized that she’d been passing secret information from her job on to the Soviets the whole time she’d worked there. By that time, Norwood was an 87-year-old grandmother, whose 1999 arrest made headlines and shocked everyone who knew her — including her family.
Watch This:
Expand your study further with these spy books for kids:
Spy Science: 40 Secret-Sleuthing, Code-Cracking, Spy-Catching Activities for Kids by Jim Wiese
How to be an International Spy: Your Training Manual, Should You Choose to Accept It by Lonely Planet Kids
DK Eyewitness Books: Spy: Discover the World of Espionage from the Early Spymasters to the Electronic Surveillance of Today by Richard Platt
World War II Spies (You Choose: World War II) by Michael Burgan
Homeschool Unit Study: The History of Cuneiform
Ancient Mesopotamia’s writing system offers a peek into geography, history, culture, and class in the ancient world. Learn more with a secular homeschool unit study for middle and high school students.
Ancient Mesopotamia’s writing system offers a peek into geography, history, culture, and class in the ancient world. Learn more with a secular homeschool unit study.
Some time between 522 and 486 B.C.E., a patient scribe carved the story of the rise of Darius the Great into a cliff in western Iran, not once but three times in three different cuneiform script languages. The finished inscription is 49 feet high and 82 feet wide, a virtually indelible record of the triumph of the most famous man in the world at the time — but it would be more than 2,000 years before any English-speaking historian could read it.
Cuneiform, along with Egyptian hieroglyphics, is one of the two most ancient written languages in human history. The birth of writing 5,500 years ago in ancient Sumeria was probably born of economic need instead of creative energy: The earliest written records, tokens made of stone or clay, record business transactions. Later, these tokens became pictographs, symbols inscribed on clay tablets that represented numbers or objects. Gradually, these symbols became more complex and sophisticated, and writing became about telling stories as much as about conducting business. By the time cuneiform faded from use — around the first century C.E. — people used it write letters, do schoolwork, write religious texts, and more.
Unlike an alphabet, cuneiform uses between 600 and 1,000 characters to write words or syllables — which may help explain why it was so difficult for Western readers to discover. To read it, you have to learn the language being recorded and then all the signs, which tend to have multiple possible meanings. Like other languages, cuneiform seems to be easier for children to pick up than for adults — many of the surviving cuneiform documents we have today are actually spelling and handwriting exercises probably done by Sumerian students.
Part 1: How Cuneiform Works
Do this:
Try this:
Pretend the alphabet doesn’t exist, and you have to invent a form of writing based around simple pictures. Brainstorm a basic system, and see if you can use it to write:
your name
a verb (like dance or read)
adjectives (like delicious or fun)
Talk about this:
What does picture writing do well? What are some advantages it might have? What limitations does picture writing have?
What is the purpose of writing? Think about commercial reasons (like buying and selling), political reasons (writing laws or training an army), and social reasons (telling stories or organizing religions).
Part 2: The Story of Writing
Do this:
Work through the interactive online activity The Story of Writing, which explores the development of the cuneiform character for barley over time.
Talk about this:
How does the development of the symbol for barley show how cuneiform evolved over time?
Think about this:
Why did the ancient Mesopotamians simplify their pictographs over time? How might this make writing faster or easier? What might be the implications of changing from direct representation (pictures) to abstract representation? (Think about who has access to education.)
Part 3: Writing as Artifact
Talk about:
Cuneiform gives us an idea of what life was like in ancient Mesopotamia and about what kind of lives the people from that place and time lived. So what does it tell us about these people that they started writing in order to record agricultural transactions? Why would these records be important? Who would benefit from recording these commercial transactions? (Think beyond the buyers and sellers — how might these records affect things like taxes and services?)
What else might be important to keep records of? (Births, marriages, and deaths? Property ownership? Work contracts? Religious rules and rituals?) How could writing be used to legitimize and extend political power? (Think of the carvings we talked about at the beginning of this unit — what is their purpose? How well did they succeed at accomplishing that purpose?)
Do this:
Explore some of the artifacts in the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute Tablet Collection. What do these artifacts tell you about life in ancient Mesopotamia?
Great Readaloud Biographies for Women’s History Month
Looking for a great biography for Women’s History Month for your secular homeschool? We’ve got some suggestions for every grade level.
For Women’s History Month, take a homeschool road trip to some woman-powered regions of history that don’t always show up in traditional textbooks.
A note about reading levels: People ask me about reading levels a lot, and the truth is that I don’t think about reading levels a lot. I have had my most advanced high school students write dense academic papers about children’s and middle grades books, and I read Finnegan’s Wake to my daughter when she was in the NICU. In other words, I think if the book and the reader match, the reading level doesn’t really matter that much. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I would absolutely read all of these books with my tween and teen homeschooler and feel like we were doing solid academic work together.
Margaret Knight
With her father’s toolbox and her sketchbook of inventions, Mattie Knight could — and did — make almost anything, including flat-bottomed paper bags (which we still use today), a metal guard that protected textile factory workers from flying shuttles, and a numbering machine. In fact, she held 87 U.S. patents, earning her the nickname the “Lady Edison.”
Read more about her in:
Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully
Bessie Coleman
Growing up in rural Texas, Coleman yearned to get out of the cotton fields and into school, so she made learning part of her life, checking the foreman’s numbers every day to practice her math. In her 20s, she moved to Chicago, where she learned French in order to study flying in France, where she became the first African-American pilot.
Read more about her in:
Fly High!: The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden
Elizabeth Blackwell
There weren’t any women doctors when Elizabeth Blackwell was growing up in the 1830s — so it’s not very surprising that the plucky girl met plenty of resistance (including 28 medical school rejections — ouch!) when she decided she wanted to be a doctor. Blackwell’s determination and hard work carried the day, however, and Dr. Blackwell became the first female doctor in the United States.
Read more about her in:
Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell by Tanya Lee Stone
Caitlin O’Connell
Scientist Caitlin O’Connell made an amazing discovery while studying elephants at Erosha National Park in Namibia: The elephants communicated with each other by “hearing” vibrations through special sensory cells in their feet.
Read more about her in:
The Elephant Scientist by Caitlin O’Connell
Ada Lovelace
Sorry, Steve Jobs, but Lord Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace may just be the pioneering genius behind modern day computer science. Lady Byron steered her daughter toward science and mathematics, which inspired her to work wit Charles Babbage, a mathematics professor whose Difference Engine is often considered the first proto-computer.
Read more about her in:
Emmy Noether
Albert Einstein called Noether the most important woman in the history of mathematics, and even if you’ve never heard her name before, you’re familiar with her work if you’ve ever studied abstract algebra or theoretical physics.
Read more about her in:
Emmy Noether: The Mother of Modern Algebra by M.B.W. Tent
Queen Emma of Normandy
The grandmother of William the Conqueror, Emma of Normandy deserves her own spot in history. Emma, who married two kings and gave birth to two kings, helped shape French and English history during the tumultuous 11th century.
Read more about her in:
Queen Emma and the Vikings: Power, Love, and Greed in 11th Century England by Harriet O’Brien
Anne Carroll Moore
Kids owe more than they know to Moore, who helped create the young reader-friendly libraries we know today. Moore shook things up at the New York Public Library during her tenure there from 1906 to 1941, creating the first children’s reading room, extending library checkout privileges to children, and arguably helping to launch the children’s literature boom of the 20th century.
Read more about her in:
Maria Anna Mozart
Maria Anna was Mozart’s sister — and history suggests that she may have been just as talented as her younger brother, though after a few years as a child prodigy pianist, Maria Anna was forced to give up music for more ladylike pursuits and a suitable marriage.
Read more about her in:
Mozart’s Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music by Jane Glover
Josephine Baker
Born into poverty in turn-of-the-century St. Louis, Josephine Baker would become one of the icons of the Jazz Age, a dazzling performer whose singing and dancing earned her international acclaim. Baker’s professional triumphs are especially notable considering the racist climate of the United States in the early 1900s.
Read more about her in:
Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter
Mary Shelley
Though best-known for her famous relations (she was the daughter of early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and radical philosopher William Godwin, as well as the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelly) and for her “monster novel” Frankenstein, Mary Shelley was one of the pioneers in the field of short stories, a critic, editor, literary travel journalist, poet, and devoted mother.
Read more about her in:
Mary Shelley by Miranda Seymour
Beverly Cleary
The writer who brought us Ralph S. Mouse, Ramona Quimby, and Henry Huggins always had an empathy for children trying to navigate the complicated rules of the adult world.
Read more about her in:
A Girl from Yamhill by Beverly Cleary
Henrietta Leavitt
Leavitt’s work at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900s was supposed to be methodical and uncreative, but Leavitt was too intelligent to record without analyzing. Using blinking stars to determine brightness and distance from the Earth, Leavitt helped astronomers understand that the universe was much larger than anyone had previously suspected.
Read more about her in:
Look Up!: Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman Astronomer by Robert Burleigh
Amelia Earhart
Everyone knows Earhart’s story: An intrepid pilot , she vanished with her plane without trace on her last daredevil flight. But there’s a lot more to her story than many people know, from her carefully maintained image (she curled her straight hair every single day to give it that “carefree and easy” look) to her surprising business savvy.
Read more about her in:
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming
Patience Wright
One of colonial America’s most celebrated artists, Wright worked as a spy for the the United States during the Revolutionary War, smuggling information from England in her artwork.
Read more about her in:
Patience Wright: American Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy by Pegi Deitz Shea
Zora Neale Hurston
Dramatic, talented, and more complicated than you might have realized, Zora Neale Hurston lived a life as fascinating as her novels. Her struggle to balance her own literary ambitions with the pressure from her peers to communicate “the Black Experience” may fascinate older readers and trigger engaging conversations.
Read more about her in:
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd
Sarah Edmonds
Nineteen-year-old Sarah Edmonds was one of many women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the Civil War, but that was just the beginning. Edmonds also disguised herself as a black slave to spy for the Union Army and helped tend wounded soldiers on and off the battlefield.
Read more about her in:
Irena Sendler
During World War II, Sendler helped rescue some 2,500 Jewish children in German-occupied Poland by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto with false papers and placing them with sympathetic Polish families. She was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo but survived the war, after which she tried to reunite the children she had saved with their families.
Read more about her in:
Irena’s Jars of Secrets by Marcia Vaughan
Marie Curie
Marie Curie may be one of the best-known women in science, but you probably don’t know her as well as you think you do. The first person to win two Nobel Prizes (in two different sciences, no less), Curie lived a fascinating life in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris and started research that would literally change the world in the century to come.
Read more about her in:
Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
Alice Coachman
Coachman, who grew up in segregated Georgia during the 1930s, became the first black woman to win an Olympic medal (in 1948). Coachman’s story is inspiring not just because of her talent (she was named one of the top 100 Olympic athletes of all time in 1996) but because of how much she overcame to achieve her dream.
Read more about her in:
Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper by Ann Malaspina
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