Noticing the lack of K12 and public education, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a “Women’s History Week” celebration set for the week of March 8, 1978. Due to the success of the week and the spread of women’s history celebrations across the country, in 1981 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution to establish a national women’s history week. Public schools began establishing curricula for women’s history week, and several states and local governments sponsored events for the week-long celebration. In 1987 the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned congress to expand to the entire month of March, and since 1992 every U.S. President has declared March to be Women’s History Month.
A couple of books to start with:
America’s women : four hundred years of dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines by Gail Collins
The essential feminist reader edited and with an introduction by Estelle B. Freedman
Herstory : women who changed the world edited by Ruth Ashby and Deborah Gore Ohrn ; introduction by Gloria Steinem
33 things every girl should know about women’s history : from suffragettes to skirt lengths to the E.R.A. edited by Tonya Bolden
Web Links:
National Women’s History Project
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