Well-known historical figures who are not the usual subjects

August 15, 2015 11:55 AM

I am teaching a new-to-me introductory graphic design class this fall and I would like to have the students create a collage illustration of a uniquely-assigned historical figure. I would appreciate help in generating a list of figures that students could easily find out about, but who are not the usual subjects, especially if said figure can broaden a student's multicultural knowledge.

I have taught graphic design full-time for eight years, so crafting the assignment is not a problem. I am spearheading a new initiative to develop our students' multicultural knowledge and awareness, so I would appreciate suggestions for historical figures for the students to research that would help broaden their cultural horizons. I would love to put together a list of figures that don't include any CIS-gendered white males. Not all of our students are white; in fact, I often have classes with only a handful of white males and generally have African American, Hispanic and Vietnamese students in class. However, their public schooling and media-at-large generally only exposes them to the accomplishments of white men and modern media figures.

The students will need to begin generating ideas early, so it would help if the figure is someone whose contribution could be grasped relatively quickly. In other words, it helps if I can think of some visual angles to take on the subject in case I need to help a student generate ideas.

People I have thought of so far: Octavia Butler, Sarah Bernhardt, Toussaint Louverture, George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Madam C.J. Walker, Indra Nooyi, Valentina Tereshkova, Ada Lovelace, Mary Shelley, Daniel Inouye, Maya Lin...

posted by Slothrop to Media & Arts (42 answers total)

Bayard Rustin
posted by jgirl at 11:59 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wilma Mankiller
Lena Horne
Cesar Chavez
John Brown
posted by workerant at 12:13 PM on August 15, 2015

Maimonides
posted by devinemissk at 12:19 PM on August 15, 2015

Laura Secord (Person, not the chocolate)

Louis Riel
posted by saucysault at 12:25 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Margaret Cavendish
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Elizabeth Blackwell
posted by Bardolph at 12:25 PM on August 15, 2015

From the "screwed out of Nobel Prizes" file:

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Rosalind Franklin
posted by Betelgeuse at 12:26 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]

Henry Tanner, Solomon Northup, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Hercules
posted by lharmon at 12:27 PM on August 15, 2015

Alaska Native civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich
posted by charmedimsure at 12:27 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Marie Curie
posted by microcarpetus at 12:29 PM on August 15, 2015

Grace Hopper
Thurgood Marshall
Rosalind Franklin
Hypatia
Margaret Cavendish
Audre Lord
bell hooks
Caroline Herschel
Mary Sommerville
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Hatshepsut
posted by ApathyGirl at 12:30 PM on August 15, 2015

Helen Keller, a woman and both blind and deaf -- proving that even seriously handicapped people can be kickass historical figures.
posted by Michele in California at 12:32 PM on August 15, 2015

Response by poster: Thank everyone for the suggestions so far! This is exactly what I had hoped for!
posted by Slothrop at 1:07 PM on August 15, 2015

Native American men who were prominent in the American Civil War: Ely Parker and Stand Watie
Clara Barton
Florence Nightingale
posted by lharmon at 1:11 PM on August 15, 2015

Beautiful Hollywood star, mathematician and inventor Hedy Lamarr!
posted by workerant at 1:17 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Lewis Latimer invented the long-life lightbulb but the only dude we ever hear about is Edison
posted by lakersfan1222 at 1:51 PM on August 15, 2015

Celia Cruz
posted by lakersfan1222 at 1:58 PM on August 15, 2015

Lots of good female suggestions at Mighty Girl in the Historical Character and Biography sections.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 2:00 PM on August 15, 2015

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the 9th-century Persian mathematician without whom we might still be counting in Roman numerals?
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:08 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

... or Ibn Battuta, the great traveller? Or Boudicca, Celtic warrior queen; the pharaoh Akhenaten, "the first individual in history" (by the way, how old are your students? The whole pharaonic-dynasty incest thing might be a bit tricky); Hokusai, iconic and influential Japanese woodblock print artist; Confucius, whose name is synonymous with wisdom; or perhaps Isabella Bird, intrepid Victorian explorer, the first woman to be admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society?
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:36 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Emiliano Zapata
Garcilaso de la Vega
Rigoberta Menchú
José Rizal
Frida Kahlo
Juana Inés de la Cruz
posted by sukeban at 3:04 PM on August 15, 2015

Srinivasa Ramanujan
posted by rhizome at 3:52 PM on August 15, 2015

Mohammed Ali
Arthur Ashe
Althea Gibson
Sidney Poitier
Mathew Henson
posted by SemiSalt at 4:18 PM on August 15, 2015

Leadbelly
Alan Lomax
Nina Simone
nthing Cesar Chavez
Eugene V. Debs
Dorothea Dix
Paul Robeson
Sylvia Rivera
Chuck D
posted by nightrecordings at 4:58 PM on August 15, 2015

Genghis Khan
Murasaki Shikibu
Sappho
Cleopatra
Catherine the Great
Indira Ghandi
posted by frumiousb at 5:01 PM on August 15, 2015

Alhazen.
posted by standardasparagus at 5:26 PM on August 15, 2015

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Some wonderful images available, plus very interesting issues of treaty rights and Native American wars.

nthing Frieda Kahlo

Martin Luther King

Mahatma Gandhi

Emma Goldman

Sacajawea of the Shoshone
posted by kestralwing at 5:52 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Abu Bakr
Agüeybaná
Ahmad al-Mansur
Amaterasu
Ashurbanipal
Askia Mohammad
Ashoka
Attila
Börte
Boudica
Brennus
Catherine the Great
Cleopatra
Cunhambebe
Cunobeline
Cyrus II
Darius I
Dido
Elizabeth I
Gajah Mada
Indira Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi
Genghis Khan (Temujin)
Gilgamesh
Gunnhild
Haile Selassie
Hammurabi
Hannibal
Harun al-Rashid
Hatshepsut
Hiawatha
Hippolyta
Huayna Capac
Isabella
Ishtar
Jeanne d'Arc
João II
Julius Caesar
Justinian I
Kamehameha
Kublai Khan
Livia
Logan
Mangas Coloradas
Mao Zedong
Mansa Musa
Maria I
Maria Theresa
Mehmed II
Montezuma I
Montezuma II
Mursili I
Muwatallis
Nazca
Nebuchadnezzar II
Oconostota
Oda Nobunaga
Osman I
Pacal II
Pachacuti
Pedro II
Pericles
Pocatello
Qin Shi Huang
Ramesses II
Ramkhamhaeng
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sacagawea
Saladin
Scheherazade
Sejong the Great
Shaka
Shakala
Sitting Bull
Smoke-Jaguar
Suleiman
Suryavarman II
Taizong of Tang
Theodora
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Victoria
Wang Kon
Wu Zetian
Xerxes
Zara Yaqob

From Civ, with most of the too-obviously white and male ones removed (I probably missed some).
posted by sfenders at 6:53 PM on August 15, 2015

"All the male heroes bowed their heads in submission;
Only the two sisters proudly stood up to avenge the country."
posted by mr. digits at 7:14 PM on August 15, 2015

Hannah Senesh!
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:32 PM on August 15, 2015

Rasputin
Tesla
Kurt Schwitters
Matta
posted by effluvia at 9:19 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Grace Lee Boggs, Shirley Chislom, Jeanette Rankin, Mary Crow Dog/Brave Bird, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Woodhull....
posted by brujita at 9:28 PM on August 15, 2015

Vivien Thomas
posted by midmarch snowman at 2:15 AM on August 16, 2015

Add: Frederick Douglass
posted by megatherium at 6:16 AM on August 16, 2015

Mary Seacole
Oloudah Equiano
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 7:32 AM on August 16, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you all again! My assignment now has a great list of historical figures that the students must choose from. Someone asked about the students age - they are college sophomores who are provisionally declaring to be graphic design concentrates within the studio art major, by the way.
posted by Slothrop at 7:32 AM on August 16, 2015

Simon Bolivar
posted by niagara_falling at 9:16 AM on August 16, 2015

Hope I'm not too late, but I have to add Mandela to the list.
posted by gimonca at 11:00 AM on August 16, 2015

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (but maybe she's too contemporary?)
Madame Blavatsky
Annie Besant
posted by rjs at 12:29 PM on August 16, 2015

Athanasius Kircher

posted by ecorrocio at 12:47 PM on August 16, 2015

Averroes is surprisingly both the sort of figure you're looking for and avoiding.

What of the Russian Constructivists (graphic design, hello)?

Kim Dae-jung, 2000 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, dubbed "Nelson Mandela of Asia", is rather fascinating.

You could do a lot worse than looking at Peace Prize laureates, many of whom are already household names - I'm sure you and your students can list a few right off the top of your heads. I just named one of the lesser-paraded example. Punch me, but to be quite frank, the above collection so far isn't nearly as diverse as you'd want them to be.
posted by pos at 4:54 AM on August 17, 2015

.
posted by pos at 5:26 AM on August 17, 2015

man oh man

seconding Sappho so much...

also
Sylvia Plath
Virginia Woolf
Simone de Beauvoir
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft

Kara Walker
Faith Ringgold
Frida Kahlo
Yoko Ono
Yayoi Kusama

... and more! Binders of women!
posted by pos at 5:26 AM on August 17, 2015