Jane Goodall Autobiography

Jane Goodall Autobiography

Full Name: Dame Jane van Lawick-Goodall
Date of Birth: April 3, 1934
Place of Birth: London, England
Died: N/A
Place of Death: N/A
Classification: Scientists & Thinkers



Known for her work with Chimpanzees in Tanzania, Jane Goodall had a whole other approach to the way she studied animals in the wild. With patience, noted observation, and becoming nearly a member of the social organization, Goodall was enthralled with providing documented proof that Chimpanzees did, in fact, have a deeply rooted social structure and hierarchy.

In her late teens, Jane had decided she wanted to find a way to get to Africa. Rejecting the idea of a traditional education, she worked various jobs, but always with the same deep interest and love for animals. At the age of 26, she had her opportunity to go to the Gombe National Park near Lake Tanganyika. She had a hard time convincing officials that she would be able to survive on her own, so her mother went along and the trip proved to be exactly what Jane had been longing for. Little did anyone know she would stay in the area for more than 20 years.

Goodall worked with Louis Leakey, who chose her to watch over the different species of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans in the area, as she would have a “pure and undiluted” perception about what the animals were doing and how their social system was arranged. Her lack of formal university training actually worked in her favor. After spending months of gaining the trust of her subjects, she was able to mold herself into their social system. She was able to note the differences that each one had in regard to personality. She also noted that the chimpanzees were less violent than previously thought, although several years later she witnessed a war between two groups in which one group annihilated the other.

Jane Goodall also noticed that the chimpanzees used tools to extend their own bodily capabilities, such as using sticks to catch termites and grasses that would aid in their omnivorous efforts. For these observations and after returning to England several times in order to complete her reports, Goodall earned a PhD from Cambridge, one of the only to do so without having obtained an undergraduate degree.

In the latter 1970s, Goodall started the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research to help raise funds so that others could continue her work. This institute would also fund research elsewhere in the world. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, Goodall started the Committee for the Conservation and Care of Chimpanzees who were being used for research studies. She called for better care, conditions, and conservation.

In her life, Jane Goodall won many prestigious awards, has written several articles, and done several documentaries with National Geographic, which she won the Society’s Centennial Award. She has also been awarded the Kyoto Prize, the Woman of the Year Award, and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.