The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society.
About Women’s History Month
Before the 1970’s, the topic of women’s history was largely missing from general public consciousness. To address this situation, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978 and chose the week of March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.
The celebration was met with positive response, and schools began to host 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 became 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.
In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) cosponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a “Women’s History Week.”
In 1987, the National Women’s History Project petitioned Congress to expand the celebration to the entire month of March. Since then, the National Women’s History Month Resolution has been approved every year with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
Information from the National Women’s History Project (external link)
African American Women’s Resources
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
From the New York Public Library’s Digital Schomburg Collection, this site offers a searchable full-text database of 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers and provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.
African-American Women
Duke University’s online archival collection containing primary Internet sources, manuscripts, and women’s studies resources. Full text versions of diaries, letters, and newspapers offer insight into life for African American women in the South.
American Women’s History: A Research Guide: African-American Women
This web site provides an extensive bibliography of resources relating to the history of African American women.
From Slave Women to Free Women: The National Archives & Black Women’s History in the Civil War Era
This article by Noralee Frankel appeared in the Summer 1997 edition of NARA’s publication, Prologue.
About African American Planning Commission
sending...
Recent Comments