Isabella L. Bird

Isabella Bird (1831–1904), later Isabella Bird Bishop, was an English traveler, writer and photographer. Sent abroad for her health as a young woman, she went on to explore Hawaii, the Rocky Mountains, Japan, the Malay Peninsula, Persia, Kurdistan, China and Korea, often alone and on horseback, and described her journeys in vivid letters turned into books such as A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan and Korea and Her Neighbors. She founded mission hospitals in memory of her husband and sister, and in 1892 became the first woman elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.