About Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”
Executive and Legislative Documents
The Law Library of Congress has compiled guides to commemorative observations, including a comprehensive inventory of the Public Laws, Presidential Proclamations and congressional resolutions related to Women’s History Month.
Other Dedicated Web Sites
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- National Archives
- National Park Service
- Smithsonian Education
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Selected Audio and Video
Arts and Culture
- AfroPop Worldwide (National Endowment for the Humanities)
- Anna Deavere Smith, 44th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (National Endowment for the Humanities)
- Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, American Masters Series (National Endowment for the Humanities, PBS)
- Mona Lisa in Camelot: How Jacqueline Kennedy and Da Vinci’s Masterpiece Charmed and Captivated a Nation, a podcast by author Margaret Leslie Davis (National Gallery of Art)
- Rachel Whiteread: Ghost (National Gallery of Art)
Business and Economics
Civil Rights
Culture and Folklife
- Home Canning: Cultural Narratives, Technological Change & the Status of Traditional Knowledge (Library of Congress)
- A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes and Remembrances (Library of Congress)
- Bringing in the May (Library of Congress)
- History of Household Technology (Library of Congress)
- Women’s History and Food History: New Ways of Seeing American Life (Library of Congress)
Government, Politics and Law4Hide All
- A Modern Queen in a Traditional Role (Library of Congress)
- Carla Hayden Sworn In as 14th Librarian of Congress (Library of Congress)
- Madeline Albright, “Memo to the President-Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership” (Library of Congress)
- My Dear President: Letters Between Presidents and Their Wives (Library of Congress)
History
Music and Performing
- Anuradha Nehru Oral History (Library of Congress)
- Anna Deavere Smith, 44th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (National Endowment for the Humanities)
- Dolly Parton and the Roots of Country Music (Library of Congress)
- Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, American Masters Series (National Endowment for the Humanities, PBS)
- Katherine Dunham Collection (Library of Congress)
- The Legacy of Ola Belle Reed: Oral History (Library of Congress)
- The Lili’u Project — Women’s History Month Concert (Smithsonian Learning Lab)
- Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes, Feeling Heart (PBS, National Endowment for the Humanities)
- NOKA: Basque Song & Music from California (Library of Congress)
- NOKA Oral History (Library of Congress)
- Open Mic: Interview with Fiona Ritchie (Library of Congress)
- Sidney Robertson Cowell & the WPA California Folk Music Project, 1938-1940 (Library of Congress)
Poetry and Literatur
