Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel was born in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, France. She grew up poor, and at 11, after her mother died, she and two of her sisters were sent to an orphanage. There, she learned to sew, a skill that would serve her later in life. At 18, she started working as a seamstress while trying to launch a career as a singer, performing in cabaret shows. During this time, she received the nickname, Coco. At 23, she began a relationship with Etienne Balsan, who introduced her to the “rich life” and high society circles. She began working as a milliner and hat designer at the time. Two years later, she left Balsan for one of his friends, Arthur “Boy” Capel, who encouraged her to cultivate her talent and passion, and financed her first millinery shop at 21 rue Cambon, Paris, which opened in 1910. Two years later, she opened a boutique in Deauville, where, in addition to hats, she sold simple sportswear made of jersey, a fabric that until then was used to make men’s underwear. Her revolutionary clothing drew the attention of several well-known actresses, who helped build her reputation. In 1915, at 32, Chanel opened her first Couture House in Biarritz and launched her first Haute Couture collection. The following year, she paid Capel back his original investment, made only three years before. In 1918, she purchased a building in 31 rue Cambon, Paris, and set up her Couture House as well as a boutique, workshop, and several salons. By then, Chanel was a popular figure in the Parisian art world and designed costumes for the Ballets Russes. Under the agenda that “luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury,” Chanel’s designs were always simple, comfortable, and yet luxurious, and by that, she revolutionized the fashion industry. In 1921, Chanel collaborated with the perfumer Ernst Beaux and launched her signature scent, Chanel No. 5 – the first designer perfume. She manufactured and distributed the fragrance with the help of Pierre Wertheimer of the Bourjois cosmetics company and Théophile Bader of the Galeries Lafayette department store in a controversial deal that left her with only 10% of the profits. She continued to expand the Chanel brand, adding a makeup collection in 1924 and introducing the Chanel collarless skirt suit and the iconic little black dress in the next couple of years. Her designs changed the face of fashion by removing the traditional corsets and confining garments and borrowing men’s wear elements. In the early 1930s, she was invited to Hollywood to design costumes for various films and soon became the private designer of A-list actresses such as Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. During WW2, Chanel lived in the Hotel Ritz in Paris and became associated with a Nazi military officer. This connection tainted her reputation, and she closed her business for the next 15 years. In 1954, at 71, she reopened her Couture House and introduced several new styles, such as the bell-bottomed pants and the braided cardigan jacket, maintaining her agenda of a clean, classic luxurious look. Although she received harsh reviews, the shoppers thought otherwise, and her clothing returned to be a must-have in every fashionista’s closet. In the next two decades, Chanel continued to design new and innovative clothes, fragrances, and accessories, including bags, watches, and jewelry. She kept on running her brand until she died at the age of 88. Read more...

Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier was born in Montbrison, France to a noble family. She was sent to a convent at the age of 3 after her mother died. At 12, she returned home and served as her father’s hostess. In the following year, to prevent her from marrying a 50 years old man, her father arranged for her to marry his 28 years old colleague, the French nobleman and scientist Antoine Lavoisier. In 1775, when she was 17, the couple moved to Paris, where her husband dedicated his time to chemistry and built a laboratory in their house. Paulze-Lavoisier became interested in her husband’s activities and started helping him with his work. At first, she made notes, documented research records, and sketched diagrams of the experimental designs. To widen her knowledge, she took chemistry lessons with her husband’s colleagues, and to draw the instruments more accurately, she took art lessons with the painter Jacques-Louis David. Her illustrations were an essential element that helped his peers to understand the experiment’s methods and results. Paulze-Lavoisier mastered French, English, and Latin, and she translated works of foreign chemists and added commentaries for her husband’s use. It was crucial for his need to be updated on current developments and imply the discoveries in his experiments. Paulze-Lavoisier was a vital part of her husband’s experiments, and although she received only formal credit for her drawings, she played a significant role in conducting the experiments and editing the published reports. With their joined forces, the Lavoisiers redefined the field of chemistry. In 1789, they published the Traité Élémentaire de chimie, which contains 13 of Paulze-Lavoisier’s original sketches. Today it’s recognized as the first modern chemistry textbook. In that same year, the French Revolution erupted, and the Lavoisiers, who were nobility, were marked as traitors. In 1794, her husband was imprisoned. She fought to release him. Presenting his accomplishments and contributions as a scientist, but despite her efforts, he was convicted of treason and executed. After her husband’s death, the new government confiscated all her money and property, including the laboratory equipment and notebooks. Despite the difficulties, 36 years old Paulze-Lavoisier began to gather enough materials and compile them into an eight-volume collection of her husband’s experiments and conclusions titled Mémoires de Chimie. The book was published in 1805 and has secured her husband’s legacy of defining the principles of the new chemistry. Afterward, Paulze-Lavoisier’s scientific activities came to an end, and she spent the rest of her life as a socialite, trying to maintain the salon-style way of living as it was before the revolution. She died at the age of 78. Read more...

Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in poverty after her father left the family when she was only a few months old. At the age of 8, she started working as a domestic servant for white families to support her family. Later on, she lived on the streets and earned money as a street performer. At 13, she began to work as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur’s Club, where she met Willie Wells. The couple got married but divorced only a few months later. She joined a street performance group, and in 1923, at the age of 16, she moved with them to NYC, leaving her second husband, William Howard Baker, whom she married the previous year. In NYC, she performed at the Plantation Club while auditioning for serval productions, finally landing a role in the chorus line of the Broadway revue Shuffle Along. Her comic touch made her stand out as an audience favorite, and soon, she booked her next Broadway role in the course line of The Chocolate Dandies. In 1925, at 18, Baker moved to Paris to dance in La Revue Nègre at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where she introduced to the French audience her danse sauvage (savage dance), wearing nothing but a skirt made of a string of bananas. Her star was on the rise, and she became one of the most popular entertainers in France, being admired by artists such as Ernest Hemingway, Jean Cocteau, and Picasso, who drew paintings of her. After a successful European tour in 1929, she acted in numerous films. With the money she earned, Baker bought an estate in the South of France called Château des Milandes. In the mid-30s, she sailed back to the US, trying to establish herself as a performer in her home country, but left after being scrutinized by the critics and receiving racist reactions from the crowd. On her return to France, she married her third husband, the French industrialist Jean Lion, and gave up her American citizenship to become a French citizen. When WW2 erupted, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, the French military intelligence agency. As an entertainer, she traveled across occupied Europe and socialized with German politicians and high-rank officials to gather information. When Nazi Germany invaded France, she moved to her estate in the south, joined the Red Cross, and worked for Free France – the exiled French government. Later, she relocated to the French colony in Morocco, smuggling hidden messages in music sheets while entertaining the troops in North Africa and the Middle East. After the war, she received numerous honors for her work with the resistance. In 1947, Baker married her fourth husband, the French orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, returning to Paris and the stage, more popular than ever for her performance and tribute to the war effort. In 1951, she was invited to perform in the US and was appalled by the racial discrimination she had encountered. Though no longer an American citizen, she began to work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and by refusing to perform in segregated venues, she helped to integrate live shows in Miami and Las Vegas. Baker could not get pregnant because of a hysterectomy due to complications of a stillbirth she had during the war. In the early 1950s, she began adopting children from different ethnicities and religions, calling her family The Rainbow Tribe. They lived on her estate in Southern France, which included a farm, rides, and numerous hotels. She charged an entrance fee for guests to use the facilities and watch her children sing, dance, and view her “experiment in brotherhood.” In 1968, at the age of 62, after a few years off the stage, she realized that her popularity had declined. In 1973, she made a comeback when performing at Carnegie Hall in NYC and was greeted with a standing ovation. In Paris, two years later, she had 50 years in business revue financed by Princess Grace and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The sold-out show was attended by A-listers such as Liza Minnelli, Mick Jagger, and Diana Ross. Four days later, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was found in her bed surrounded by newspapers with raving reviews of her show. She died in the following year at the age of 68. Read more...

Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie was born in Warsaw, Russia (Nowadays, Poland). Curie has always been a top student, graduating at 16 with a gold medal, but could not enroll in formal higher education institutions because of her gender. Instead, she studied at a secret school called “Flying University,” which admitted female students. Her family did not have the means to finance school abroad, especially after her mother died a few years earlier, so she and her older sister had an agreement to take turns in work to support the other’s education in Paris. As the younger, Curie worked as a home tutor to finance her sister while educating herself independently. In 1891, at the age of 24, she joined her sister in Paris, changing her name to Marie, and began to study physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the Sorbonne while continuing to tutor in the evenings. At 26, she earned her degree in physics, and in the following year, she received her second degree. She was commissioned to study different types of steel and their magnetic features but did not have a lab to do her work. While looking for a lab, she met the physicist Pierre Curie, who allowed her to use his lab for her research. Soon, they became involved romantically and got married within a year. In 1896, 29 years old Curie became fascinated with Henri Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity and began researching substances that emit radiation. Her husband was so intrigued by her work that he left his own research and joined hers. Their lab was not big enough for their experiments, so they worked in an old shed with broken windows and no heat. In the following year, Curie had given birth to her first daughter Irène. In addition to the challenges of being a new mom and working on her research, she began to teach at the École Normale Supérieure to support her growing family. After two years of research, the Curies succeeded in isolating a new element, which they called Polonium, after Curie’s home country of Poland. Six months later, they announced the discovery of another element, Radium. Between 1898 to 1902, the couple published 32 papers on the new elements and their various properties, especially their therapeutic abilities. In 1900, at the age of 33, Curie was appointed lecturer in physics at the École Normale Supérieure, the first female faculty member at the school. There, she introduced an innovative teaching method based on experimental demonstrations. In 1903, she received her doctorate of science from the Sorbonne. At that same time, Curie, her husband, and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their researches on radiation, becoming the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. In 1906, after the sudden death of her husband, Curie was offered her husband’s vacant professorship position at the Sorbonne, once again making history as the first woman to teach at the prestigious university. She continued her research, and in 1910 she succeeded in isolating Radium while defining a new standard for radioactive emissions, which she named the Curie after her and her husband. In recognition of her revolutionary work, Curie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, making her the first to win two Nobel Prizes and the first to be awarded the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Only after winning her second Nobel Prize, Curie become a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay and got the French government support to establish the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, where she served as the director of the Curie Laboratory. In the first year of WW1, Curie developed mobile X-ray units, which were used for diagnosing injuries in field hospitals. Serving as Director of the Red Cross Radiological Service, Curie, and her 17 years old daughter, Irène, set up the first military radiology center in France and supplied 200 “Petits Curies” that helped locate fractures and bullets of the wounded men. In 1915, she provided the field hospitals with needles that contained Radium emanation from her supply, enabling sterilizing infected tissues. Later, she detailed her wartime experiences in the book Radiology in War. After the war, Curie continued with her research and teaching positions and gave lectures around the world. She served on the International Atomic Weights Committee and established the Curie Foundation in Paris and the Radium Institute in Warsaw, where her older sister served as director. Curie died at the age of 66 of aplastic anemia, which was caused by years of radiation exposure.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Marie Curie with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was born in Paris, France, into a bourgeois family. She was raised Catholic and received her education at convent schools, wishing to be a nun. After WW1, her family lost much of their fortune, so her dowery was at risk, meaning that her marriage options were limited, and de Beauvoir saw that as an opportunity to become independent and earn her own living. In 1926, at 18, she attended the Sorbonne as a non-official student for preparations for the philosophy agrégation – a competitive national postgraduate examination. At 21, she passed the exam with the second-highest record, becoming the youngest person ever to pass the exam. At the time, she met the philosopher-to-be Jean-Paul Sartre. After de Beauvoir rejected his marriage proposal early on in their relationship, they formed a lifelong “soul partnership” that was sexual (but not inclusive) and professional. After receiving her degree in 1929, and for the next 15 years, de Beauvoir taught philosophy and literature in various high education institutes in France, including the Lycée Montgrand in Marseille and the Lycée Molière in Paris. During WW2, the Vichy government had dismissed her from her teaching position, which led de Beauvoir to launch her literary career, and she began writing plays, philosophical essays, and novels. In 1943, 35 years old de Beauvoir published her first book – She Came to Stay, exploring her real-life love triangle with Sartre and a young student named Olga Kosakiewicz, examining the complexity of relationships and the conscience to the other through existential lenses. The following year, she published a philosophical essay titled Pyrrhus and Cineas and a novel, The Blood of Others, questioning existentialist ethics. In 1949, at the age of 41, de Beauvoir published her most known work, The Second Sex – a 1,000-page analysis of the patriarchy and women’s oppression throughout history. In this groundbreaking book, she claimed that “One is not born but becomes a woman,” making the distinction between biological sex and the social construction of gender and ultimately defining the foundational of contemporary feminism. de Beauvoir published more than 80 books in different genres over the next four decades. Including novels, travel books, autobiographies, and philosophical essays. Among them were: The Mandarins, for which she won the Prix Goncourt, and a four-volume autobiography titled Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter; The Prime of Life; Force of Circumstance. In her later works, she discussed the philosophy of aging and death. In her 1964 novella, A Very Easy Death, she detailed her mother’s passing, as well as in her 1970 book, The Coming of Age, which provided reflected bitterly on society’s perception of elders. Throughout the years, de Beauvoir used both her pen and voice to advocate for various political and social causes, such as the struggle of Hungary for independence, the student movement in France in the 1960s, and against American foreign policy during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, de Beauvoir became involved with the women’s liberation movement in France. She wrote essays, gave lectures, and participated in women’s equality demonstrations. In her work and her actions, de Beauvoir influenced many worldwide feminists in her time and paved the way for all feminists to follow. She died of pneumonia at the age of 78. Read more...