National Women's History Month
In 1978, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women held the first Women's History Week, choosing the week of March 8 in order to center the celebration around International Women's Day. The week grew in popularity as dozens of schools planned special programs, a "Real Woman" Essay Contest brought in hundreds of entries, and annual parades were held in Santa Rosa, California. The movement spread to other areas, and in 1981, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) co-sponsored a Joint Congressional Resolution to establish a National Women's History Week. The week became an entire month of celebration in 1987 when the National Women's History Project petitioned Congress. Yearly activities in schools, workplaces, and communities are now held to celebrate famous women. (From National Women's History Project http://www.nwhp.org/)
Famous Women
Louise Arner Boyd | Jeannette Rakin | Lucy Stone | Juliette Gordon Low
Wilma Mankiller | Mary Mahoney | Patricia Roberts Harris
| Louise Arner Boyd ~ First woman to fly over the North Pole |
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Louise Arner Boyd was born in 1887 in San Rafael, California, near San Francisco. When she was only 13 years old, she inherited all of her family's fortune and began to travel around Europe. In 1924, she visited the Arctic on a Norweigan cruise liner, and this one visit sparked her interest in polar exploration. |
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In 1928, Louise began her first Arctic expedition, her mission being to find the missing Norweigan Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen, who had gone missing. She not only led the expedition, but financed it as well with her inheritance. Her expedition traveled over 10,000 miles, but she never found a trace of Amundsen. She received the Chevalier Cross of the Order of Saint Olav by the Norweigan government for all she accomplished. She made many more trips to the arctic almost every year till she retired in 1955 after being the first women to fly over the North Pole. She studied glacial formations, plant life, animal life, and measured ocean depth around Greenland. (Source http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/100import/) Back to top |
Jeanette Rakin ~ First woman in the House of Representatives |
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Jeannette Rankin was born near Missoula, Montana, on June 11, 1880. In 1902, she graduated from the University of Montana, and soon after, she attended the New York School of Philanthropy. From 1909 to 1914, she campaigned in Washington, California, and Montana for women's suffrage. In 1914, she became the National American Woman Suffrage Association's legislative secretary. In 1916, Jeannette became the first woman to become elected into the House of Representatives. There, she introduced a bill that gave women independent citizenship and hygiene instruction during maternity and their children's infancy. However, it did not pass. Then, in 1917, she voted against declaring war on Germany. This gave her great unpopularity and she ended up losing her seat in the House in 1918. |
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In 1940, Jeannette won a seat in the House once more by running on an antiwar platform. However, once more she stimulated her unpopularity by voting against declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor was harmed (and the only person to vote against the declaration of war). Although Jeannette lost politically, she participated in the National Consumer's League and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, among others. In the 1960's, she established a homestead for women in Georgia and also participated in the antiwar effort against the Vietnam War. When she was 87 years old, on January 15, 1968, she led over 5,000 women, the "Jeannette Rankin Brigade," to oppose Indochina's hostilities at the bottom of Capitol Hill. Jeannette died on May 18, 1973. (Source http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/100import/) Back to top
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Lucy Stone ~ American suffragist |
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Lucy Stone was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, on August 13, 1818. She attended the first woman's college, Oberlin College in Ohio, and graduated in 1847. After that, she became one of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's lecturers and also spoke on her own about women's rights. In 1850, she organized the first national women's rights convention. In 1855, Lucy married the Ohio abolitionist Henry B. Blackwell. However, she kept her maiden name as her last name, showing her protest against inequality between men and women. This keeping of the maiden name became legal under the Lucy Stone Law. Lucy also supported Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Women's National Loyal League during the Civil War. |
| In 1861, Lucy was elected president of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association, which she also helped organize. Also that year, she went to Kansas and New York and joined the women's suffrage amendment campaigns there. In 1898, she organized the New England Woman Suffrage Association and in November 1869, Lucy formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. This organization helped raise money for the Women's Journal, a weekly magazine that first appeared in 1870. In 1872, she became Woman's Journal's co-editor with her husband. After 1890, Lucy was a National American Woman Suffrage Association executive board chairman until her death. She died in Dorchester in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 18, 1893. (Source http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/100import/) Back to top
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Juliette Gordon Low ~ Founder of Girl Scouts |
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Juliette Gordon Low was born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia. She was the second oldest of the six children born to William Washington Gordon and Eleanor Kinzie Gordon, whose families had been early settlers in Georgia and Illinois. Daisy, as she was called by her family, grew up in a large Savannah home where she developed early interests in animals and the arts. She attended a boarding school in Staunton, Virginia as a child and traveled throughout the United States and Europe. She married an Englishman named William Mackay Low when she was 26, but returned to America during the Spanish-American War to help her mother organize a hospital for wounded soldiers returning from Cuba.
| In 1911, Gordon Low met Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who had founded the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. She became interested in the youth movement, and on March 12, 1912 she registered the first American Girl Guides troop. The following year the name was changed to Girl Scouts.
The Girl Scout movement has inspired generations of girls to enjoy the outdoors, rely on themselves, and become active citizens. Juliette was welcoming to girls with disabilities at a time when they were generally excluded from activities, and this spirit continues today. The movement started with 18 girls and has grown to 3.7 million current members. It is the largest educational organization for girls in the world and has had more than 50 million girls, women, and men as members over the years. | |
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Juliette Gordon Low died from breast cancer in 1927, and was honored with the establishment of the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund, which finances international projects for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides. She has had a US Postal stamp created in her honor, and had a World War II Liberty Ship named for her. She was inducted in 1979 into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, and had a federal building in Savannah named in her honor in 1983. This was the second federal building to ever be named after a woman. Every year Girl Scouts celebrate Juliette Low's birthday to honor their founder.
(Image from http://www.gawomen.org/honorees/lowj.htm) (Info from http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/history/low_biography/) Back to top
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Wilma Mankiller ~ First female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation |
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Wilma Mankiller was born in Oklahoma in 1945, but spent her younger years in San Francisco. While in California she learned of the women's movement and organizing, and carried these ideas back to Oklahoma. |
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She set out to help the Cherokee Nation by starting community self-help programs and helping people learn about getting out of poverty. She ran for deputy chief of the Nation in 1983 and became Principal Chief in 1985. Mankiller is credited with bringing about important changes for the Cherokees, including improved health care, education, utilities, and tribal government. Still serving as Principal Chief today, she is responsible for 139,000 people and a $69 million budget. Her future plans including attracting higher-paying industries, increasing the adult literacy rate, and supporting women returning to school. Outside of the Cherokee Nation, Mankiller is an active civil rights and women's issues supporter. (Source: http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=104)
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Mary Mahoney ~ First professionally trained African-American nurse |
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Mary Mahoney was born in Massachusetts in 1845 and was working in hospitals well before graduating from the nursing school of the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1879. |
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At the time formal nursing training was a relatively new concept and the courses were tough. Only four of the 18 women who started school with Mahoney went on to graduate. Mahoney's high level of achievement broke down racial bias and allowed other African-American women to train as nurses. She had a successful career as a private duty nurse and was one of the few African-American members of the American Nurses Association at the time. Mahoney was an active member of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses as well as an advocate of woman suffrage. She is believed to be the first woman to register and vote in Boston after the passage of the 19th Amendment. To honor significant contributions to race relations, the Mary Mahoney Award of the American Nurses Association was created in Mahoney's honor. (Source: http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=103)
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Patricia Roberts Harris ~ First African-American, female US Ambassador |
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Patricia Roberts Harris was born in Mattoon, Illinois in 1924. She attended Howard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1945. While in college she participated in a student sit-in at the District of Columbia's Little Palace Cafeteria to protest the fact that African Americans were not served there. |
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She married in 1955 and entered law school at George Washington University. After graduating first in her class, she was admitted to the District of Columbia bar and worked briefly for the US Department of Justice. President John F. Kennedy appointed her co-chair of the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights, but she returned to Howard University in 1963 as an associate Dean of Students and professor. In 1965, she took a leave of absence from Howard to accept appointment as Ambassador to Luxemburg, making her the first African American woman to accept such an appointment. After her time as ambassador, Harris served as US alternate delegate to the 21st and 22nd General Assembly of the United Nations and was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1977. (Source: http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=200)Back to top
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