Fourth of July Mayhem, c. 1864

Famed poet Maya Angelou, a.k.a. Miss Calypso, once made her living doing a calypso club act in San Francisco. Source: PBS.
Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 1 from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719.
Maria Sibylla Merian was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator. With a grant from the city of Amsterdam, she spent two years in Surinam, a Dutch Colony in South America, where she recorded, illustrated, and noted the medicinal uses of the plants and animals. A single mother (she divorced her husband), Merian took her youngest daughter with her. Source: National Museum of Women in the Arts
Lady Florence Norman, a suffragette, on her motor-scooter in 1916, travelling to work at offices in London where she was a supervisor. The scooter was a birthday present from her husband, the journalist and Liberal politician Sir Henry Norman. Source: Retronaut