• picture
  • picture
  • picture
  • picture
Public Radio's Environmental News Magazine (follow us on Google News)

Women of Discovery

  



Dr. David Livingstone, Laurence of Arabia, and Lewis and Clark are just a few of the heavyweights in the history of exploration. Their adventures in the wild were the stuff of legend, and countless publications recount their travels. But to find their female counterparts, you’d have to dig deep for even the slimmest of volumes. So that’s just what author Milbry Polk did. She picked through the backrooms of library archives and traveled to distant corners of the globe in order to piece together the stories of history’s greatest women explorers.

Along the way, she learned of women who braved the jungles of the Amazon, who traveled with cannibals in the Congo, and who overturned the mores of their society in order to explore. Polk chronicles the stories of 84 women in her book, Women of Discovery: A Celebration of Intrepid Women who Explored the World. And though many of their names and stories may be unfamiliar, she writes that "the story of women explorers is as old as time, as old as myth, and as real as memory."

Living on Earth Today Audio Feature
Women of Discovery

  

Buy Women of Discovery by Milbry Polk and Mary Tiegreen

 

Women of Discovery
Published: January 1, 2003

Our on-air broadcast.

Lorna Marshall
listen / download
Published: January 1, 2003

Zora Neale Hurston
listen / download
Published: January 1, 2003

The first African-American to chronicle African-American folklore and voodoo.

Lady Mary Pierrepont Wortely Montagu
listen / download
Published: January 1, 2003

Annie Smith Peck
listen / download
Published: January 1, 2003

Mary Kingsley
listen / download
Published: January 1, 2003


Back to the series and features homepage

 

Living on Earth wants to hear from you!

Living on Earth
62 Calef Highway, Suite 212
Lee, NH 03861
Telephone: 617-287-4121
E-mail: comments@loe.org

Newsletter [Click here]

Donate to Living on Earth!
Living on Earth is an independent media program and relies entirely on contributions from listeners and institutions supporting public service. Please donate now to preserve an independent environmental voice.

Newsletter
Living on Earth offers a weekly delivery of the show's rundown to your mailbox. Sign up for our newsletter today!

Sailors For The Sea: Be the change you want to sea.

The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment: Committed to protecting and improving the health of the global environment.

Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an archival print of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary wildlife photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs.

Buy a signed copy of Mark Seth Lender's book Smeagull the Seagull & support Living on Earth