The History of Women’s History Month

The other day I was standing in the hallway of my school reading the Women’s History Month bulletin board that had been assembled by our library media specialist. (My school is too cool to use titles like “librarian.”) A colleague walked by and said, “Wow, I didn’t even know there was a Women’s History Month. How long has this been celebrated?” With that, I realized I didn’t know the answer. Shame on me! Bad feminist! 


So I was off to do some research. 

I told my co-worker that I thought it was established in the 1970s, but that I wasn’t sure. Turns out I wrong. As recently as the 1970s, women’s history was virtually an unknown topic in the K-12 curriculum or in the general public 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 for 1978 during the week of March 8, which was International Women’s Day. The local Women’s History Week activities met with enthusiastic response, with  dozens of schools planing special programs, over 100 community women doing special presentations in classrooms throughout the country and an annual “Real Woman” Essay Contest that drew hundreds of entries. The finale for the week was a celebratory parade and program held in the center of downtown Santa Rosa, California.


In February 1980 President Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women’s History Week. In the same year, Representative Barbara Mikulski, who at the time was in the House of Representatives, and Senator Orrin Hatch co-sponsored a Congressional Resolution for National Women’s History Week of 1981. 


As word spread rapidly across the nation, state departments of education encouraged celebrations of National Women’s History Week as an effective means to achieving equity goals within classrooms. Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon, Alaska, and other states developed and distributed curriculum materials for all of their public schools. 


By 1986, 14 states had already declared March as Women’s History Month. Because of this momentum the National Women’s History Project, the group behind these efforts, decided it was time to lobby Congress to declare the entire month of March 1987 as National Women’s History Month. In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women’s History Month and a special Presidential Proclamation is issued every year which honors the extraordinary achievements of American women.


Visit the National Women’s History Project website for more information.