March is National Women's History MonthThe Search - I wanted to find out what is going on around the web with this idea. I started with a Yahoo! search, naturally, which turned up over a thousand hits. (The Census Bureau's fact page is title linked above).
First, about the guys, however - But when I did a "men's history month" search, all that came up near the top of the list were references to men honored for accomplishments in sports. So we are the only gender that has our own history month, for starters. But then I realized that the idea of "men in history" seems to be just a given. Men in history is not even a concept. Men and history are almost synonymous. My university class professor of American History in 1988, for instance, devoted one lecture day of the entire semester to American women in history. His favorite was Lizzie Borden. The class was in stiches as he described her axe swinging fury.
But I digress; back to my subject. First of all much of the "celebrating" is done by public libraries or departments at colleges and universities. Here are a couple of examples: Glendale College in California and Indiana University.
Women's History Month is celebrated this month, March 2006 -
- The National Women's History Project honors women with the theme, "Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams." The dates (including their links):
March 19th: Celebrating Women’s History Month and Recognizing 2006 Honorees at Autry National Museum in Los Angeles, CA.
March 22nd: Celebrating Women’s History Month and Recognizing 2006 Honorees at Hay Adams in Washington, DC.
- National Park Service feature on Women's History Month, March 2006. Quote,
The National Register of Historic Places is pleased to promote awareness of and appreciation for the historical accomplishments of American women during Women's History Month.
- Infoplease page, "Women's History Month." This is an aggregation of dozens of valuable URL's regarding this subject.
- And, surprisingly, the Defense Department celebrates Women's History Month. Also, did you know that there is a "Women in Military Service for America Memorial" at Arlington National Cemetary?
Women online - Women's e news.org in New York publishes features by and about women. Louise Bernikow wrote about the history of the idea of a "month." I quote from "Our Story,"
March is women's history month. What we now so blithely celebrate, praising individual females for accomplishment and movie stars for being movie stars, actually began in the midst of a revolution.Research resources -
By 1876, the United States was patting itself on the back by holding a huge anniversary celebration of the country's birth. Believing that the promises of the Declaration of Independence were still unfulfilled for women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lucretia Mott and their sister activists went to Philadelphia to protest. Afterward, the first three began to set down their history. "Men have been faithful in noting every heroic act," they wrote, so their task was "to make for generations a record of the heroic deeds of the other half."
Collecting memories and documents from across the country, sifting through their own collections and arguing, they set to work. Ten years later, "The History of Woman Suffrage" appeared in three volumes, numbering over 1,000 pages. After Stanton died in 1902, journalist Ida Husted Harper joined and in the end the massive work became six volumes available for "generations."
- "Women's History" blog, by Jone Johnson Lewis at About.com. The rich site included a jigsaw puzzle, a poll, and gobs of good links.
- Thanks to this guy, Ken Middleton, a librarian at Middle Tennessee State University, who has collected a huge wonderful set of references titled, American Women's History: a Research Guide, updated at the end of last year.
My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about a short Spring.
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