Biography of Madame de Maintenon, mistress and secret wife of King Louis XIV, is on Project Continua here!
Tag Archive for Educators
Madame de Maintenon
By Elizabeth Pearce Madame de Maintenon (France 1635-1719) Born Françoise d’Aubigné on November 27, 1635 in a building adjacent to the prison of Niort, where her father, Constant d’Aubigné was serving a sentence for various crimes, including rape, murder, and creating and using counterfeit money.[1] Her mother was Jeanne de Cardillac, a “prudent and amiable…
Happenings
Antonia Maury on Project Continua!
Read all about astronomer and educator, Antonia Maury, whose stellar classification catalogue, published in 1897, was the first observatory publication credited to a woman.
Antonia Maury
by Lindsay Smith Antonia Caetana Maury (1866-1952) Maury was born on March 21, 1866, in Cold Springs, New York. Her father, Mytton Maury, was an Episcopal minister and amateur naturalist. Her mother, Virginia (Draper) Maury, was the sister of Henry Draper, the first person to photograph stellar spectra. Antonia Maury was also the granddaughter of…
Helene Schweitzer Bresslau
Helene Schweitzer Bresslau (1879—1957): Albert Schweitzer’s Wife, Colleague, and “Most Loyal Friend” by Patti M. Marxsen From Berlin to Strasbourg Helene Schweitzer Bresslau was born in Berlin in 1879 to a cultivated family of assimilated Jews. She grew up with two brothers, Hermann and Ernst, as well as the younger sister and brothers of her…
Tarquinia Molza
by Penelope Whitworth Tarquinia Molza (1542-1617) Italian virtuosa singer who was a notable courtier, celebrated musician and acclaimed intellectual of her time. In addition to performing, she was probably an instructor and advisor to the concerto delle donne of the court of Ferrara where she was a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess, Margherita Gonzaga-Este.[1] In 1589…
Arete
by Eliana Greenberg and Koren Whipp Arete of Cyrene (late 5th or early 4th C. BCE)[1] Philosopher and teacher in Cyrene, Cyrene was founded around 630 BCE by Greek colonists from Thera, and it became an important cultural mecca known for academic pursuits, and home to the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, founded by Arete’s father, Aristippus.…
Hypatia
by Gina Luria Walker Hypatia 370–415 was a Greek scholar, daughter of a master teacher at the academy at the Great Library at Alexandria, Egypt. During her lifetime, Hypatia was renowned as a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and teacher, as well as a great beauty. She defied popular assumptions about women by wearing the black philosopher’s…
Laura Bassi
by Gina Luria Walker Laura Bassi (1711–1778) Laura Bassi’s achievements as experimental scientist, professor, wife, and mother were unprecedented, even in 18th Century Italy which enjoyed a unique tradition of learned women. Bassi was unusual in being from a middleclass family. She was educated at home by a male tutor who provided traditional training in…
