Follow the stories of six women who held different positions in society as performers, mathematicians, musicians and writers, and contributed to enriching their fields and breaking barriers.
They left glimpses of their lives through pieces of text and letters they wrote. You can help share their stories by joining our transcribathon run.
Sophie Arnaud
Sophie Arnaud was a French opera singer born on 13 February 1740 in Paris.
Sophie was known to be a passionate actress with a very beautiful voice. She was in high demand for her performance skills in Parisian society. It was said that the official chief mistress of King Louis XV Madame de Pompadour told her that ‘With such talents, you could become a princess’.
She attained a lot of success in operas by composers such as Jean-Philippe Rameau and Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny.
However, Sophie lacked discipline as a singer which caused her vocal skills to decline prematurely. Despite this, she was able to retire with an admirable pension.
During her life, she was known for having as many affairs with women as she did with men. Actress Fanny Raucourt, Duchess of Boufflers (and the Maréchale of Luxembourg), Mademoiselle de Villeroy and the Princess of Hénin were a few of her romantic partners.
Transcribe the letter Sophie wrote to socialites Madame Bernard and her daughter Madame Récamier.
Wanda Młodnicka
Wanda Młodnicka (born Monné) was a Polish writer, translator and activist of the People’s School Society. The main goal of the People’s School Society was to help communities establish primary schools, with the slogan ‘through education to freedom’.
She was the love of Polish painter Artur Grottger’s life. Her family did not approve of him but this didn’t stop them from getting engaged. He made artworks dedicated to her, wrote her love letters and helped her finance contributions for a Siberian man in poverty she was collecting money for. He quickly made a drawing that provided a large amount of money to support the man.
In her diary, she traces Grottger’s life, experiences and her longing for him as he was away displaying his artworks in Paris.
Their passionate love would unfortunately come to a premature end due to his death from tuberculosis at just 30 years old in 1867. She took his body from the Pyrenees in France, where he had gone to recover, to Lviv in Ukraine. He was buried at the Lychakiv Cemetery, a place he had chosen.
She later married Artur’s friend, Polish painter Karol Młodnicki, with whom she collected mementos of her deceased fiancé and exhibited his paintings in a salon they created together.
Transcribe a sketchbook of Wanda's.
Transcribe pictures and texts from the collection of Karol and Wanda.
Sophie Germain
Marie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. She was born on 1 April 1776 in Paris and came from a wealthy bourgeois family.
With the French Revolution and period of the Reign of Terror, she rarely left the family home. This encouraged her to take up studying in her father's library which contained several mathematical writings.
She trained herself in mathematics and thanks to the writings of Étienne Bézout, she learned the theory of numbers. She learned Latin and Greek and tackled the works of Isaac Newton and Leonard Euler. Despite initial resistance, her family supported her thirst for knowledge both morally and financially.
Sophie used the pseudonym Monsieur Le Blanc to correspond with famous French mathematicians of her time such as Gauss and Lagrange.
She wrote an essay on the subject of elasticity theory and won the grand prize from Paris Academy of Sciences for it. Her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem provided the foundation for mathematicians for hundreds of years to follow.
Sophie experienced prejudice against her being a woman and with the inability to make a career out of mathematics, she worked independently throughout her life.
Transcribe the collection of her dissertations and physics and mathematical problems.
Narcyza Żmichowska
Narcyza was a Polish novelist and poet who was considered a precursor for feminism in Poland. She was born in Warsaw on 4 March 1819 to a poor family who had lost their fortune due to disinheritance.
Narcyza was greatly influenced by her brother Erazm’s political and social views. Her brother, a revolutionary, was in exile from the Russian Partition after the anti-Tsar November Uprising was squashed by imperial forces.
She reunited with him in Paris where he told her to enrol in the Bibliothèque Nationale. She became one of the first women at the French Academy.
Her stay in France influenced her greatly. Her views about women were radical for the time, and she smoked cigars which was prohibited for women. She travelled to Warsaw frequently and met with other intellectuals. In Warsaw, she wrote regularly for Polish magazines despite them being under Russian censorship.
Narcyza’s first novel, Poganka (The Heathen), was published in 1846. In it, she expresses romantic interest in her friend Paulina Zbyszewska giving a glimpse into her private life.
She also founded a group of suffragists in Warsaw between 1842-1849 who took part in anti-Tsarist activities.
Transcribe Narcyza’s memories of people and events from her notebook.
Zofia Rosengardt-Zaleska
Zofia was born in 1824, the daughter of Józef Rosengardt, a Napoleonic officer and his wife Józefa (Bańkowska). Her father became disabled due to paralysis and her mother struggled to take care of Zofia and her three sisters.
Zofia was musically gifted. Despite her family's financial difficulties, she received musical training from Wojciech Żywny, the former teacher of famed Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. She came to befriend Chopin’s sisters in Warsaw and when she left for Paris in May 1843, she hoped that she would be able to receive lessons from him there.
Six months later, she finally met Chopin through her connections to Polish poet Stefan Witwicki. She received her first lesson from him in November 1843, and spent around 10 months attending one lesson a month.
During this period she met and married Polish poet Józef Bohdan Zaleski with whom she had six children.
Zofia did not pursue a musical career but left a diary in which she wrote about Chopin. She describes him as a teacher, and writes about his personality and her dreams to marry him.
Transcribe Zofia’s diary.
Ema Destinnová
Czech opera singer Ema Destinnová was born on 26 February 1878 in Prague (as Emilie Pavlína Věnceslava Kittlová). She was known to be one of the greatest opera singers of the 19th and 20th century. In 1892, Ema was sent to a German boarding school (in Prague) to learn German, piano and violin.
At boarding school, it was recommended that she take up singing. In honour of her voice teacher Marie von Dreger Loewe-Destinn, Ema started using her teacher’s last name.
On 19 July 1898, she debuted at the Berlin Court Opera in Cavalleria rusticana as Santuzza. Her acting and her voice made an impression on the Berlin public at the young age of 19.
She sang in 51 operas including 12 premieres during her time with Berlin Court Opera. In 1904, she made her debut in London at the Royal Opera House as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and appeared in several other operas in London for the next two seasons.
Four years later in 1908, in New York she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera with a highly praised performance of Aida. She went on to give more than 200 performances at the Met.
Transcribe postcards Ema sent to her sister during her travels.
On the occasion of Women's History Month, Europeana Transcribe offers you a chance to uncover less known women’s stories and make them more visible and accessible.