Christian Peterson
reporter.riverbendnews@gmail.com
Women’s History Month is celebrated during March each year, centering around March 8, which is International Women’s Day. The celebration, however, dates all the way back to 1978, when the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned out the first “Women’s History Week.” The week of March 8 was selected because of the time of International Women’s Day. Before long, the celebration made its way across the United States and “Women’s History Week” was taking hold all over the nation.
Things grew even larger in 1980, just a few short years after the first celebration. Multiple women’s groups, along with historians, under the direction of the National Women’s History Project, which was later renamed to the National Women’s History Alliance, lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation, declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week.
“From the first settler who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation,” President Carter said when he first designated Women’s History Week. “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.”
For the next seven years, presidents continued to proclaim National Women’s History Week. It wasn’t until 1987 that Women’s History Month was born. That year, the United States Congress passed Public Law 100-9, which designated March as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, each president has proclaimed March as Women’s History Month.
In 2025, the theme of Women’s History Month is “Moving Forward Together! Women educating and inspiring generations.” Here are some interesting ways that women have helped everyone around the world:
• Enheduanna was the first author to be named in recorded history; she was a Mesopotamian poet, princess and priestess.
• Hedy Lamarr was an actress and an inventor; she co-invented an early version of a wireless communication system. Her technology went on to be the basis of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
• Sybil Ludington, an American Revolution heroine, is believed to have ridden twice as far as Paul Revere to warn about the British coming.
• British chemist Rosalind Franklin discovered the structure of DNA.
• Clara Barton, a nurse during the Civil War, was known as the “Angel of the Battlefield.” She later founded the American Red Cross.
• Harriet Tubman was the first woman to lead an armed military operation in the United States.
• Mary Anderson invented windshield wipers for cars.
• Josephine Cochrane invented the mechanical dishwasher.
• Marie Curie was the first woman to win not just one but two Nobel prizes.
• Ada Lovelace came up with an idea for a computer language long before computers were invented.
• Nancy Johnson invented a hand-operated ice cream maker in 1843.
• Madeleine Albright was the first female US Secretary of State.
Throughout all of human history, the contributions of women are evident. Humanity wouldn’t be in the place that it is without the creativity, ingenuity and hard work of women across the globe. Join Riverbend News as we celebrate women from our coverage area who have been influential in shaping the community we live in.
