Celebrating Women's History - The Story Milestones Leading to​ Women's History Month

Milestones Leading to Women's History Month

As National Women’s History Month draws to a close, we celebrate the many milestones that preceded a month-long celebration of women’s progress. The history begins with a women’s labor protest in 1857 and continues to the late 20th century with Congressional action in 1987. Along the way there was a National Women’s Day, a National Women’s History Week, and then the National Women’s History Month. These special occasions occurred chronologically, but the origins of each are different. March 8th is an important part of this history.

National Women’s Day
Through the first half of the 19th century, a majority of the population lived on farms and all the members of the family contributed to farm production. Family businesses also characterized the nonfarm occupations (shopkeeper, tailor, physician, etc.). About three-fourths of working women were unpaid workers in these family farms and businesses and some were slaves in 1850. Tiny fractions were factory workers (1.3%) and teachers (less than 1%). In a previous MOTAL article this month titled “Women Dominate U.S. Teaching,” the transition from male to female majority in the teaching profession after 1840 is described.

The event most often cited as the root of National Women’s History Month is a protest on March 8, 1857, when women garment workers from various New York City factories staged a protest over inhumane working conditions and low wages. Factory walk-outs had preceded the 1857 protest, but this one led to the organization of the first female labor union. By 1860 about a third of unmarried women aged 25-29 were engaged in wage labor, and they had been exposed to the work of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833), the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York (1848), and New York’s first comprehensive reform legislation extending women’s legal property, parental, and widow’s rights (1860), among other organizing efforts on behalf of women. In fact, the United Nations identifies the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 as the first milestone in the United States for International Women’s Day.

Protest on March 8, 1857

First Women’s Rights Convention at
Seneca Falls, New York (1848)

Labor protests continued, propelled in part by an increase in factory jobs, tragic factory accidents and loss of life, an increase in young women in the labor force (about 40% by 1900), and by activism in support of other areas of women’s lives. On March 8, 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to child labor. Nearly a year later another milestone was reached, the first ever National Woman’s Day was celebrated in the United States on February 28, 1909.


In subsequent years, many countries and the United Nations set aside days to honor women and to promote their rights. In some countries the day’s celebration reflects its labor protest and women’s rights origins; in others it is a family-oriented holiday much like our Mother’s Day.

It was in 1977 that the United Nations first recognized March 8th as International Women’s Day and has since designated a theme each year. In this case, the March 8th date is strongly linked to the women’s movements during the Russian Revolution in 1917. In 2021, the theme is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.”

National Women’s Week
Congress established National Women’s History Week in 1981 to be commemorated annually the second week of March, the next major milestone in the U.S. The movement began in individual locales and grew into an inter-organizational and multi-state lobbying effort for a Women’s History Week at the national level. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women had planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978 to bring women’s history to the K-12 curriculum in the schools. The organizers selected the week including March 8th, from International Women’s Day.


The idea for a Women’s History Week spread across the country and into the halls of Congress. 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 including March 8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week, followed by bi-partisan sponsorship of a Congressional Resolution for National Women’s History Week in 1981.
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National Women’s Month
A new lobbying effort was needed every year to establish the annual Women’s History week. By 1986, 14 states had already expanded the week to a month of recognition of the work of women in their states. This state-by-state action supported an effort to lobby Congress to declare the entire month of March 1987 as National Women’s History Month in perpetuity. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the president has issued a proclamation.

The words of President Jimmy Carter to the nation designating March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week are good reminders of the legacy and the promise of women’s contribution to society as a whole.


“From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well. . . . Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people.”

Submitted by Mary Deming
MOTAL Board Member
We Educate People About Education


References
Stephen Ruggles, “Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800–2015,” Demography Vol. 52, Issue 6, pp. 1797-1823 (2015).


Laura Donnaway, “Women’s Rights Before the Civil War," Student Historical Journal Vol. 16 (1984-1985), Department of History, Loyola University New Orleans


https://motal.dm.networkforgood.com/emails/1122406?fbclid=IwAR1NzYMq7QK9q2v7ehIkPGmi2ddffzi7-e1FRRVivv_OMR6vcaPC-PVno3o


https://www.un.org/en/observances/womens-day/background


https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/events/2021/03/event-international-womens-day-2021


https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/womens-history-month/womens-history-month-history/


https://www.womenshistory.org/womens-history/womens-history-month