Celebrating Women's History Month

By Presidential proclamation, March is designated Women’s History Month. During March, we honor and celebrate women’s contributions to American history.

According to The National Women’s History Museum,

“Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year.

In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women's History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.”

Here are some resources to help you celebrate this month:

• National Women’s History Museum
• National Women’s History Alliance
• Women’s History Month website from 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, which all join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance, and celebration of the vital role of women in American history
• Berkeley Public Library Women’s History Activity Sheet