This year we invite you to be curious and go a little deeper into the heritage months we honor in the United States. This March is Women’s History Month.
We celebrate Women’s History Month every March to align with International Women’s Day on March 8. In the 1970s, the movement to recognize women and their achievements gained momentum to be first celebrated for a week and then a month. Britannica.com says, “Each March, Americans celebrate National Women’s History Month: a chance to recognize women’s varied, and often under-recognized, accomplishments throughout history.”
The Minnesota History Center and the League of Women Voter’s present a comprehensive resource called, “Votes for Women.” This is a great place to start learning about women’s history because the achievements of women in the U.S. depend largely on the recognition and rights that comes from voting.
It’s important to remember when the 19th Amendment passed in 1920 not all women were gained the right to vote. This is a clear example of systemic racism – when systems such as voting are designed to exclude people based on race. From the PBS American Experience article, Not All Women Gained the Vote in 1920, “The struggle for suffrage, which began for black women in the early 1800s, continued until activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash won the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 200 years later.”
Did you know there are 21 Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. and none of them are dedicated to women’s history? There is an ongoing effort to build a Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
What are some resources about women’s history that have moved you to learn more?
