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Maria Curie

I was born on 7th November in Warsaw, Poland. I was the youngest of five children. My parents were teachers. Dad was a mathematics and physics teacher. Mum was a teacher and the director of prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls where I studied when I was young. In May 1878 my mum died of tuberculosis. When I was 10, I began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska. Then I attended a gymnasium for girls, from which I graduated on 12th June 1883 with a gold medal. After that, my sister Bronisława and I attended the clandestine Flying University, a Polish patriotic institution of higher learning that admitted women students. Here I met several outstanding professors.

At the beginning of 1890 my sister Bronisława invited me to Paris. I declined because I couldn't afford the university tuition. It took me a year and a half longer to gather the necessary funds. In 1891 I passed the exams and started to study physics, chemistry and mathematics at the University of Paris. In 1893 I got a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann but I continued studying at the University of Paris and I got a second degree in 1894. That same year I met Pierre Curie who didn't have a large laboratory, but was able to find some space for me where I was able to begin work. Our passion for science brought us increasingly closer. On 26th July 1895, we were married in Sceaux. It was a civil marriage.

I used my husband's electrometer and I discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity. My first result was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uranium present.It was an important step in disproving the assumption that atoms were indivisible. In September 1897 our first daughter Irène was born. In July 1898 Pierre and I published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element named "polonium", in honour of my native Poland

and in December 1898 we announced the existence of a second element named "radium", from the Latin word for "ray". In 1903 I shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with my husband and the physicist Henri Becquerel for the pioneering work

developing the theory of "radioactivity". As Nobel laureates we were required to deliver a lecture. In December 1904, our secondsecond daughter Ève was born. On 19th April 1906 my husband died in a Paris street accident. I was devastated. After that, I became the first woman professor at the University of Paris. In 1911 I got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the elements polonium and radium, using techniques I invented for isolating radioactive isotopes.

During World War I, I developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals. In 1920 I founded the Curie Institute in Paris and in 1932 the Curie Institute in Warsaw. For some time I was suffering from aplastic anemia from long-term exposure to radiation, causing damage to my bone stay at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie until July 1934.

Antonia Louisa Brico

My name is Antonia Louisa Brico. I was born n 26th June 1902 in Rotterdam, the second largest city in Netherlands. My mother was not married, and when I was 2 years old she died. In 1907 Mr. and Mrs. Wolthuis took care of me and they became my foster parents. I emigrated with them to Oakland, California. I attended school as Wilhelmina Wolthuis, the name they had given to me. I started piano lessons at age of 10 after a doctor suggested this remedy to overcome my nail biting. My biggest ambition was to become a concert pianist and after my high school graduation in 1919, Mr. and Mrs. Wolthuis revealed for

the first time that they were not my birth parents. I immediately moved out and had no further contact with them. On leaving Oakland Technical High School in Oakland I was an accomplished pianist and had experience in conducting. At the University of California I worked as an assistant to the director of the San Francisco Opera. After my graduation in 1923 I studied piano under a variety of teachers, most notably under Zygmunt Stojowski. In 1927 I entered the Berlin State Academy of Music and in 1929 I graduated from its master class in conducting, the first American to do so. During that period I was also a pupil of Karl Muck, conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom I studied for a further three years after graduation. After my debut as a professional

debut as a professional conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in February 1930, I worked with the San Francisco Symphony and the Hamburg Philharmonic, winning plaudits from critics and the public. I was also a guest conductor of the Musicians' Symphony Orchestra in Detroit, Washington, D.C. In 1934 I was appointed conductor of the newly founded Women's Symphony Orchestra which, in January 1939 (following the admission of men) became the Brico Symphony Orchestra.

In July 1938 I was the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic and in 1939 conducted the Federal Orchestra in concerts at the 1939 New York World's Fair. During an extensive European tour, in which I appeared both as a pianist and a conductor, I was invited by Jean Sibelius to conduct the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra. Then I settled in Denver, Colorado in 1942. Here I founded a Bach Society and the Women's String Ensemble. I also conducted the Denver Businessmen's Orchestra, which in 1968 became the Brico Symphony Orchestra, and in 1948 I became conductor of the Denver Community Symphony. I was a conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra from 1958-1963. I taught piano or conducting to such students as Judy Collins, Donald

Loach, James Erb and Karlos Moser. I continued to appear as guest conductor with orchestras around the world. I had to fight a serious illness so I lived at the Bella Vita Towers, a nursing home in Denver since 1988.

Coco Chanel

I was born on 19th August 1883 in France in small village Saumur. I had two sisters and three brothers. My father was Albert Chanel and my mum was Jeanne Devolle. Dad was an itinerant street vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments. We had a nomadic life, travelling to and from market towns. My mom died in 1895. My father sent my brothers to work as farm laborers, my sisters and I were put in an orphanage in Aubazine in France. There I was taught to sew and i have a litel obsesion whith the pokets. Later I was taken in by my aunt. From 1905 to 1908 I performed under the pseudonym Coco as a singer in a cabaret with the song "Who Has Seen Coco?". In this time I met two men, Balsan and Capel.

In 1913 I founded my first shop for hats and women's clothing in Paris thanks to Capel's money.I began to promote casual, comfortable clothes (I was against wearing a corset),hats, bags and jewelery such as long strings of pearls, chains, plastic jewelery. My "little black" dress was considered as a classic canon of elegance. In 1921 I created a very popular and famous perfume – Chanel No. 5. By 1927 I owned five properties on the rue Cambon, buildings numbered 23 to 31. I also designed clothes for Hollywood movies. Both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich became my private clients. In 1939 I closed my couture house when the German occupation of France during World War II.

I fled the German invasion of Vichy and then returned to Paris, where I spent the rest of the war at the Ritz Hotel and I live more than 30 years there.I took part in a mission called Operation Modellhut, I was to meet Wiston Churchill and persuade him to negotiate with the Germans. When the war ended, I moved to Switzerland, but in 1954 I returned to Paris to revive my fashion house.

I proposed a costume consisting of a simple jacket without a collar, finished with braid, in combination with a knee-length skirt and this outfit has gained enormous popularity. I met several influential and famous men, but I never married.

From 1954 to 1971 I continued with my clothing store.I died on January 10, 1971. That day I had gone out with my friend Claude Baillen for a walk; when we returned, exhausted, I lay

down on my bed at the Ritz Hotel and I said: "Look, that's how you die."

Elisa Leonida Zanfirescu

My name is Elisa Leonida Zanfirescu. I was born on 10th November 1887 in Romania. My father, Atanase Leonida was a career officer while my mother, Matilda Gill was the daughter of a French-born engineer. I had 10 siblings. I was rejected by the School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest because women couldn't study there. In 1909 I was accepted at the Royal Academy of Technology Berlin, Charlottenburg. I graduated in 1912 with a degree in engineering as the world's first female engineer. After me, the Englishwoman Nina Cameron Graham and the Irish Alice Perryland also got a diploma in engineering.

Then I returned to Romania. I worked as an assistant at the Geological Institute of Romania. During World War I, I joined for the Red Cross and ran a hospital in Mărășești, Romania.

In 1917 my hospital received the wounded from

the Battle of Mărășești between the German and the Romanian armies. Around this time, I met and married the chemist Constantin Zamfirescu, brother of the politician and writer Duiliu Zamfirescu. We had two daughters, Măriucę i Ancuţę Zoe. After the war I returned to the Geological Institute. I led several geology laboratories and participated in various field studies, including some that identified new resources of coal, shale, natural gas, chromium, bauxite and copper. I also

taught physics and chemistry. I retired in 1963.

BERTHA BENZ

I was born on 3rd May 1849 in Pforzheim. My father was Karl Friedrich Ringer. When I was 23 years old I married Carl Benz. I help him pay off debts, which he had with his company. We had 5 children together: Eugen, Richard, Clara, Thilde and Ellen. On 5th August 1888 I went on a long trip with my sons Eugen and Richard.

In aboard a motor car, it was one of the great milestones in automotive history. I did it without my husband's permission which was a crime and without intending to, I became the first woman to drive a car. On the trip there were some problems with the car, but I fixed them myself. After twelve hours of travel, my two children and I finally reached our destination, where the press spred the news, and thanks to that I had good publicity and continued to invent things under my own company.

Charlotte Cooper

I was born in 22nd September 1870 in Ealing, England. I was the youngest daughter of my dad Henry Cooper who was a miller and my mom Teresa Georgia. I learned to play tennis in Ealing law tennis club. My first coach was H. Lawrence and later it was Charekes Martin and Harold Mahony. I won my first match in 1893 at IIkley and after that between years 1893 to 1917 I parcipated in 21 wimbledon tournaments. In 1895 I won my first singles title, defeating Helen Jackson in the final of the All-Comers event. One year later successfully defended my title in the Challenge Round against Alice Simpson

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Dedicated to all women.

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Maria Curie

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"PIONEER WOMEN"

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Maria Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland. She faced many challenges but became a renowned scientist and the first woman professor at the University of Paris. She made groundbreaking discoveries in radioactivity and won two Nobel Prizes.

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