Women Explorers: From the
Vikings to Space
What is an explorer?
► The
famous explorers in history books
were usually the leaders of expeditions to
find new places.
These expeditions usually included many
other people—soldiers, sailors,
cartographers, scientists, guides, cooks,
and even musicians. They were explorers
too.
Some of them were women.
The earliest adventurers from
Europe to America included women
Women Sometimes Led Exploring
Expeditions—the Vikings
► Freydis
Eiriksdottir was the daughter of
Erik the Red.
► She commanded an expedition to
Greenland and Vinland in 1000.
Did women ever sail with the
Spanish explorers?
► We
don’t know for sure. But women,
sometimes dressed as men, often sailed on
European ships.
► Women
traveled
as religious pilgrims,
as settlers, sometimes
even as pirates.
We know that women traveled through the American
Southwest with Coronado.
Catalina de Erauso: A
Spanish Explorer
To escape becoming a nun, she dressed as a boy
and sailed to America as a cabin boy in about 1608
When she was older, she dressed as a man
and became a swordsman in the Spanish army.
She called herself Antonio.
With the army, she joined expeditions to Peru and Argentina.
Later she worked as a mule caravan driver
on a route between Mexico and South America.
We know what Catalina de Erauso
looked like because she had her
portrait painted in 1630.
Some Women Served as Scientists
on Exploring Expeditions
•Jeanne Baret, from France, wanted to
see the world.
•Wearing a man’s clothes—
and giving her name as Jean Bare—
she sailed on a voyage to the South
Pacific in 1768 as a naturalist.
Jeanne Baret was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.
Later she explored Mauritius and Madagascar in Africa
Some Women Worked as Guides on
Exploring Expeditions--Sacagawea
Born in a Shoshone village,
like this one,
Sacagawea was captured by the
Hidatsas
and sold to the Mandans.
When her husband was hired
by Lewis and Clark to be their guide,
Sacagawea and her baby went too.
She worked as an interpreter and helped the company find good food
and medicines along the way.
She also gathered food, cooked, and sewed clothes for the company.
One day, she saved Clark’s scientific instruments
from being washed overboard in a storm.
Like all the other members of Lewis and Clark’s company,
Sacagawea voted on where to spend the winter in 1806
after the company had reached the Pacific coast.
We don’t know what Sacagawea looked like, but
Many artists have drawn or painted what she may
have looked like.
But she is one of the best remembered early American explorers.
Sacagawea’s picture is on the dollar coin.
Can you find her in this sculpture?
In the 1800s and 1900s, many
more women began to lead
exploring expeditions to explore
places like Africa, Asia, and
Canada.
Here are just a few . . .
Lady Anne Blunt
Explored Saudi Arabia
Mary Kingsley
Explored West Africa
Alexandra David-Neel
French—Explored Tibet in
the early 20th century
Gertrude Bell
-An archaeologist, Gertrude Bell explored the Middle East.
-She helped establish Iraq as a nation, drafting laws that
made sure women could get an education.
-The British Royal Geographic Society gave her a
gold medal for exploration.
The American Trans-Arctic Team
In 1992-1993, Ann Bancroft led a team of
four women explorers on an expedition to
cross Antarctica on skis.
For 67 days, the four women pulled 200-pound sleds
And skiied across Antarctica.
The American Women’s Trans-Artic Expedition
(AWE) made it to the South Pole in 1993.
In 2001, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen
became the first women in history to ski and
sail across Antarctica.
Ann Bancroft won
the 2008 Women of Discovery Courage Award
for her expeditions in Antarctica.
►Some
Explorers are
discoverers.
explorers look for new places, as
we have seen.
►Some expand what we know about
science.
Marie Curie
Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first
person to win two Nobel Prizes. She won the Prize in both Physics
and in Chemistry for her work with radioactive materials and her
discovery of the element polonium.
Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall spent her life studying chimpanzees
in Tanzania.
She has won many honors, including becoming a
United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Some famous women explorers were
pilots or aviators.
Amelia Earhart:
-First woman to fly alone across North America & back. (1928)
-First woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean (1932)
-First person to fly alone from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, CA
(1935)
-Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress (1932)
Today, some women explorers learn
about—or visit—outer space.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first
woman to fly in space, in 1963,
from the Soviet Union.
Sally Ride, the first American
woman to fly in space, in 1983.
Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina to
fly in space, in 1993.
You can learn a lot more about
women explorers!
On the internet:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/women.shtml
Books:
Women of Discovery: A Celebration of Intrepid Women Who Explored
the World
Women Who Dare: Women Explorers
How High Can We Climb? The Story of Women Explorers (very good
book for kids)
Extraordinary Women Explorers (also good for kids)