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March 2020 Spotlight is on National Women's History Month

by Unknown User on 2020-03-03T09:00:00-05:00 | 0 Comments

Women’s History Month is a national recognition and celebration of the significant role of women in U.S. history and contemporary society. It is held in March and provides an opportunity to educate the general public about women’s accomplishments and influence in the United States. Women’s History Month has its origins in International Women’s Day, which was first celebrated on March 8, 1911, in Europe. Unfortunately, with the economic depression of the 1930s, women’s issues, woman suffrage among them, decreased in popularity and remained so until the 1950s and 1960s. It was the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s that regenerated interest in women’s issues and history.

 In 1978 in California, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women began a Women’s History Week celebration. The week was chosen to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8. The response was positive, with numerous schools hosting their own Women’s History Week programs. The next year, leaders from the California group shared their project at a Women’s History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Other participants not only determined to begin their own local Women’s History Week projects but also agreed to support an effort to have Congress declare a national Women’s History Week.

Three years later, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution, cosponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), establishing National Women’s History Week; that was followed by a presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980, as the first National Women’s History Week. Over the next five years, joint resolutions of Congress designated a week in March as Women’s History Week and authorized the president to issue a proclamation informing the country of this recognition and urging the study of women’s contributions to U.S. history. In 1987, after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, which designated the month of March as Women’s History Month. This law requested the president to issue a proclamation calling for observation of this month with appropriate activities and ceremonies. Subsequently, an annual presidential proclamation was announced to celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States.

Description from:

Pankake, A. (2011). Women’s History Month. In M. Z. Stange, C. K. Oyster, & J. E. Sloan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World (Vol. 4, pp. 1575–1577). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference. Retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX1959900938/GVRL?u=berea&sid=GVRL&xid=fe13ed43


Description from:

Check out the titles below for more info on Women's History Month:

Cover Art Herstory by Deborah G. Ohrn (Editor); Gloria Steinem (Introduction by); Ruth Ashby (Editor)
ISBN: 0670854344
Publication Date: 1995-06-01

 

 

 

 


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