Jane Goodall was born in London in 1934. Her father was Mortimer Herbert Morris Goodall, a businessman, and her mother was Margaret Myfanwe, a novelist who wrote under the name Vanne Morris Goodall. When Jane was a child, her father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. She loved it very much, and this toy was the beginning of her love for animals. She still has Jubilee at her home in the south of England. In her book Reason for Hope, she wrote that some of her mother’s friends thought the toy would scare her, but it didn’t—it made her happy! Jane has a sister named Judith, who is four years younger than her. Jane was always interested in animals and Africa. In 1957, she visited a friend’s farm in the highlands of Kenya. There, she got a job as a secretary. Following her friend’s advice, she called Louis Leakey, a famous archaeologist and paleontologist. She just wanted to talk about animals, but Leakey had other ideas. He wanted someone to study chimpanzees, and he thought Jane could do it. First, he asked her to work as his secretary. After getting approval from his wife, Mary Leakey, he sent Jane to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania to prepare for the research. In 1958, Leakey sent Jane to London to study primate behavior and anatomy. Then, on July 14, 1960, Jane went to Gombe Stream National Park to start her research. Her mother went with her because the park’s chief warden, David Anstey, wanted someone to make sure Jane was safe. Jane became the first of the group now called The Trimates—three women who studied great apes. She says her mother encouraged her to follow her dream, even though science was mostly for men at that time. Thanks to Jane’s work, more women have joined the field of primatology. By 2019, there were almost as many women as men studying primates.
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