Womanica

Rose Valland (1898-1980) was an art historian and curator based in Paris during the Nazi occupation. She hid in plain sight as a secretary, documenting the shipments of artistic masterpieces out of France, and is responsible for the discovery and protection of over 60,000 pieces of looted artwork.

Sugawara no Takasue no musume (1008-approx. 1059), or Takasue’s daughter, was the author of “Sarashina Nikki,” or “Sarashina Diary,” a well-known book providing an in-depth look at life during Japan’s Heian period. While the book remains prolific and relevant even today, we don’t know the author's name.

Anastasia Romanov (1901-1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Her death was hotly debated for years, as she was believed to have survived her family’s execution.

Marguerite de la Rocque (c. 1542) was meant to disappear. That’s what her older relative, Sieur de Roberval, intended to happen when he marooned Marguerite on an uninhabited Canadian island. But against all odds, she survived instead.

Barbara Newhall Follet (1914-unknown) was an American child prodigy novelist. She published two books before she was a teenager and wrote poetry as well. When she was in her twenties, she left her house after fighting with her husband and was never seen again.

Clara Bow (1905-1965) was an American film star of the 1920s. Her flapper persona helped bring about the “it” girl and popularize the fads of the era. Her sudden retirement at the age of 28 essentially erased her from later films as the studio system grew, but she left an undeniable imprint on film history.

Irmgard Keun (1905-1982) was a best-selling novelist in Germany in the early 1930s. After she ran afoul of Nazi censorship, she became an exiled, “anti-German” expatriate hiding from the Nazi regime. That’s when she was reported dead by suicide. But was that really the full story?

Nadine Hwang (1902-1972) was a Chinese pilot, a lesbian writer’s driver, a foreign diplomat, and a resistance fighter. In 1944, she was captured by Nazisand vanished into the Ravensbruck concentration camp – where she endured inhumane conditions, and, met the love of her life.

Yda Hillis Addis (c.1857-unknown) was an American writer in the California literary scene. She was the first American person to translate traditional Mexican stories into English. Her career was derailed by a life of salacious legal drama that ended in her disappearing after her release from jail.

Petra Herrera (1887-1916) was a soldadera who dressed and lived under the name Pedro Herrera. While disguised as a man, she fought with the insurgent troops of the Mexican Revolution and reached incredible heights — but once it revealed she was a woman, she was refused military rank and removed from the army. Afterwards, she served undercover once again, this time, as a spy.