Portraits Archives - Who thought of it?

Portraits

Margaret Sanger: A Life Devoted To The Birth Control Movement

ByFabien August 11, 2023April 27, 2024

I never heard about Margaret Sanger before reading the book about the creation of Wonder Woman, The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. Sanger was the aunt of Olive Byrne who was the “mistress” of William Moulton Marston, inventor of the lie detector and creator of the famous DC Comics superheroine. The book explained why Sanger was shunned from history, in a way. She always was controversial, but her outrages didn’t fit anymore in the feminist narrative, shall we say.

Nevertheless, Sanger was an important figure, one that was certainly complicated, but that didn’t stop her to change a lot of things for the women of America.

Portraits

Howard Carter and the Tomb of Tutankhamun

ByFabien August 4, 2023April 27, 2024

The youngest son in an 11-child family, Howard Carter was born on May 9, 1874, in Brompton, Kensington, London. The Hamond family, the lords of the manor of Swaffham, employed his father, Samuel Carter, and his grandfather, Samuel Carter Senior, as gamekeepers on their estate. Howard developed an interest in sketching and painting because of his father and brother, William Carter, who were both artists.

As the weather in London didn’t suit him, Howard was transferred to live in Swaffham, a market town in Norfolk. Due to his ill health, he only had a meager formal education and was tutored at home privately. His father gave him drawing and painting lessons when he visited Swaffham frequently, laying the groundwork for his future careers as an artist and an archaeologist.

Portraits

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a Revolutionary Innovator

ByFabien July 28, 2023April 27, 2024

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a pioneering 19th-century engineer, left an indelible mark on the world of engineering, transport, and construction. Born into an esteemed family of engineers, Brunel’s destiny seemed preordained, yet the magnitude of his impact on the world would exceed all expectations.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, The Promising Engineer

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s youth was marked by exposure to the world of engineering and a strong foundation in mathematics, which laid the groundwork for his illustrious career as an engineer.

Portraits

Ada Lovelace, The Countess Who Knew How To Code

ByFabien July 21, 2023April 27, 2024

Born Augusta Ada Byron, Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and author who seemed for a long time fated to be forgotten, like so many women through History, but things changed and she is now rightly so widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer.

Ada was Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke’s only legitimate child. A month after Ada was born, Byron and his wife split up, and he eventually left England. Ada was just eight years old when he passed away in Greece. He passed away in Greece when Ada was only eight years old.

Her mother took it upon herself to ensure Ada had a strong education in mathematics and science. She tried to lead Ada away from her father’s literary legacy and perceived insanity, but Ada was still drawn to her father’s memories.

Portraits

Rachel Mary Parsons: Wealthy Heiress, Engineer, and Militant

ByFabien July 15, 2023April 27, 2024

Born in 1885, Rachel Mary Parsons came from a wealthy family full of brilliant minds—her father invented the steam turbine, her grandfather built giant telescope, and even her grandmother was a known as a pioneering photographer. As for herself, Rachel made significant contributions to the field of engineering and fought tirelessly for women’s rights.

Rachel Mary Parsons, Heiress and Militant

Parsons’s journey into the world of engineering began at a young age. Encouraged by her parents, particularly her mother Katharine, she received an excellent scientific education at Roedean School in Sussex, where she excelled in her studies. In 1910, she became one of the first three women to embark on the Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Cambridge University, breaking barriers and defying societal expectations of women’s roles.

Portraits

Philo Farnsworth: A Television Pioneer Who Started Young

ByFabien July 7, 2023April 27, 2024

I heard about Philo Farnsworth for the first time in the book “The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961” by Jeff Kisseloff. In it, the author described this American Inventor as the not well-known Television Pioneer who made it all possible. I was intrigued.

Philo Farnsworth, A Young Inventor Who Dreamt of Electronic Television

Philo Taylor Farnsworth II was born on August 19, 1906, in Beaver, Utah, and his interest in science started young. As a teenager, he avidly read science magazines and became captivated by the problem of television.

Portraits

Marianne North: A Victorian Pioneer in Botanical Exploration and Art

ByFabien June 23, 2023April 27, 2024

Marianne North and her father, Frederick North, were regular visitors to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. During one visit, the botanist and family friend William Jackson Hooker—first director of Kew—presented Marianne with a hanging bouquet of Amherstia nobilis, a magnificent flower native to Thailand and Burma. It was 1856, and this moment ignited Marianne’s deep desire to travel to tropical regions and capture their vibrant vegetation on canvas.

The Unconventional Life of Marianne North

Born on October 24, 1830, in Hastings, Marianne North was part of a wealthy Victorian family. Despite receiving no formal education and having a brief and unsuccessful stint in school, her family’s bohemian lifestyle exposed her to a vibrant circle of musicians, artists, and botanists, including William Henry Hunt and Edward Lear.