Herstory Revisited

Swarnakumari Devi (1855 – 1932) was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician and social worker from the Indian subcontinent . She is widely regarded as the first Indian woman novelist and the first women writer in Bengal to gain prominence. Devi was the youngest of four daughters of Debendranath Tagore, and older sister of the celebrated poet Rabindranath Tagore. While her siblings were educated at university level, it seems she was educated primarily at home. However, education was cherished by the family and when her father learned that her governess was merely writing something on a slate and having the girls copy it, he stopped the mechanical practice and brought in a better teacher. In his memoirs Rabindranath wrote, "We learnt much more at home than we had to at school." In 1868, Swarnakumari married Janakinath Ghosal, a well-educated and strong-willed young man belonging to a wealthy land-owning family. However, Ghosal had been disowned by his family for adopting Brahmo...

OTD in history, Lady Wortley Montagu died! I only learned of her existence relatively recently and immediately fell in love with her! I just bought the new book about her, but I couldn’t wait until I’d finished it to share her with you, so forgive me in advance if I end up doing another post on her when I finally finish the book! Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (née Pierrepont; 1689 – 1762) was an English aristocrat , writer, and poet. Today, she is mainly remembered for her letters, particularly her Turkish Embassy Letters describing her travels to the Ottoman Empire , as wife to the British ambassador to Turkey. These have been described as "the very first example of a secular work by a woman about the Muslim Orient". Aside from her writing, Lady Mary is also known for introducing and advocating for smallpox inoculation to Britain after her return from Turkey. She is also notable for her writing achievements, her travels, her scandalous love life, her progressive views on wo...

  “ How can we attain rights? By the strength of our agitation." Sarala Devi Chaudhurani , nee Sarala Ghosal, (9 September 1872 – 18 August 1945) was an Indian educationist and political activist, who founded the first women’s organization in India, the Bharat Stree Mahamandal, in Allahabad in 1910. One of the primary goals of the organization was to promote female education . The organization opened several offices across (the then unpartitioned) India to improve the situation of women all over India. Sarala was born in Jorasanko , Kolkata on 9 September 1872 to a prominent intellectual Bengali family - her father Janakinath Ghosal was one of the first secretaries of the Bengal Congress and her mother Swarnakumari Devi , a noted author, was the daughter of Debendranath Tagore , an eminent Brahmo leader and father of poet Rabindranath Tagore . Her older sister, Hironmoyee, was an author and founder of a widow's home. Sarla Devi's family was a follower of Brahmoism ,...

Sara Forbes Bonetta , (born  Omoba  Aina ; 1843 – 1880), was an  Egbado  princess of the  Yoruba people  in West Africa who was orphaned by war and later became the slave of King  Ghezo  of Dahomey. She was rescued from slavery by Captain  Frederick E. Forbes  of the British  Royal Navy  and became a goddaughter to  Queen Victoria . Omoba Aina, she was born in 1843 at  Oke-Odan , an  Egbado  village. In 1848, Oke-Odan was raided by a  Dahomeyan  army; Aina's parents died during the attack and at the age of five she ended up as a slave at the court of King  Ghezo . It is believed that her captors intended to use her as a human sacrifice (though I’m always a little wary of such tales coming from colonial sources #barbiansandthatinnit). Anyway, she was discovered by Captain Frederick E. Forbes of the  Royal Navy , who arrived to  Dahomey  on a British diplomatic mission to neg...

Local herstory time!  Saroj Lal (1937 – 2020) was an Indian-Scottish teacher and activist, best known as a champion of race relations in Scotland for thirty years. She moved from Pakistan in the late 1960s and trained as a primary school teacher. She then volunteered with the YWCA, became a community worker and then became a director of Lothian Racial Equality Council (LREC) and first Asian woman to become a Justice of the Peace. Lal was born in Gujranwala (then in British India), daughter of Behari Lal Chanana, a businessman and Congress party politician, and his wife, Wazir Devi Khurana, who died when Saroj was a young girl. Her father was an advocate of the Quit India movement seeking to end British Rule in India – he himself met with the first Indian Prime Minister Nehru. Her early years were marked by the events of partition, when her homeland was reassigned as “Pakistan” rather than India – meaning her Hindu family now found themselves in a Muslim majority country. Her so...