Freedom, creativity, and innovation — these are the hallmarks of Martha Cooper’s journey around the globe over the past 60 years. Hailing from a long line of strong, independent women dating back to her maternal great aunt, Henrietta Szold, a prominent activist inducted into the American Women’s Hall of Fame, Cooper grew up in a family of feminists empowered to follow their destinies.
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At the tender age of five, Cooper was instilled with a profound sense of autonomy when her mother taught her to walk a mile to kindergarten on her own through hometown Baltimore. “My mother showed me the first day,” Cooper says. “The next day she followed behind to make sure I got it right, then that was that. I grew up very free.”
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Cooper took her penchant for adventure to new heights in 1965. After completing her work in the Peace Corps to study ethnology at Oxford University, she went on the ride of her life, traveling from Bangkok to London by motorcycle alone. After graduating, she returned to the U.S. to catalogue artifacts at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. Soon bored working behind a desk, Cooper yearned to be back in the field.
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