Virtual Library Displays

Women's History Month Facts*

• The first Women's History Day was held in 1909.
  • February 28, 1909, marked the first Woman's History Day in New York City. It commemorated the one-year anniversary of the garment workers' strikes when 15,000 women marched through lower Manhattan. From 1909 to 1910, immigrant women who worked in garment factories held a strike to protest their working conditions. Most of them were teen girls who worked 12-hour days. In one factory, Triangle Shirtwaist Company, employees were paid only $15 a week.
• The day became Women's History Week in 1978.
  • An education task force in Sonoma County, California kicked off Women's History Week in 1978 on March 8, International Women's Day, according to the National Women's History Alliance. They wanted to draw attention to the fact that women's history wasn't really included in K-12 school curriculums at the time.
• In 1987, Women's History Month began.
  • Women's organizations campaigned yearly to recognize Women's History Week. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared the week of March 8 Women's History Week across the country. By 1986, 14 states had declared the entire month of March Women's History Month. In March of 1987, Congress declared March Women's History Month.
• Wyoming Territory was the first place to grant women the right to vote.
  • The Wyoming Territorial legislature gave every woman the right to vote in 1869. They elected the country's first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in 1924.
• The 19th amendment didn't give all women the right to vote.
  • The 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was signed into law on August 26, 1920. But at the time, a number of other laws prohibited Native American women, Black women, Asian American women, and Latinx women from voting, among others. It wasn't until 1924 that Native women born in the United States were granted citizenship, allowing them to vote.
• It wasn't until 1965 that all women could legally vote.
  • Even after 1924, Native women and other women of color were prevented from voting by state laws such as poll taxes and literacy tests. It wasn't until 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, that discriminatory tactics such as literacy tests were outlawed, and all women could vote.

*From womansday.com

Women’s History Milestones: A Timeline