“If one wants to reach people; If one wants to change attitudes, you have to reach the heart. You can reach the heart by telling stories, not by arguing with people’s intellects.”
81) Jane Goodall
Chimpanzee Advocate
Born: 3 April 1934, London, United Kingdom
Died: 1 October 2025, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
Jane was an anthropologist and primatologist.
Her life changed forever when she was twenty-six and visited what is now Tanzania for the first time.
In 1960, she discovered that chimpanzees use tools much the way primitive humans used to, a complete breakthrough in the study of monkeys of any kind.
Jane was the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. Jane also helped guide a group of younger people to found Roots & Shoots which works in 100 countries to inspire and educate about the importance of conservation.
Jane spent her later years as a UN Messenger of Peace.
In 1965 she was awarded a PhD in ethology and she was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. In January 2025, President Biden awarded Jane the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jane was working until the very end, passing away from natural causes (she was ninety-one after all!) while on a speaking tour around the United States. She was reportedly still traveling around 300 days a year, and was even supposed to be holding an event to help children in California begin planting thousands of new trees across the state.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Located In My Personal Library:
Jane Goodall by Laura Hamilton Waxman
In Praise of Difficult Women by Karen Karbo
Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky
The Book of Awesome Women: Boundary Breakers, Freedom Fighters, Sheroes, and Female Firsts by Becca Anderson
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History Edited By Bonnie G Smith
Sources:
https://www.janegoodall.org/our-story/about-jane/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jane-Goodall
https://apnews.com/article/jane-goodall-obit-78698397851bc7634717206f7eba07b2
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/287565202/jane-morris-goodall