March is Women's History Month!

How did this month come to be celebrated as Women's History Month? The date of March 8th was first celebrated as International Women's Day. This day was proclaimed as such by an international conference of women in order to commemorate an 1857 march by women textile workers in New York demonstrating for a shorter work week.

The public celebration of women's history in this country began in 1978 as "Women's History Week" in Sonoma County, California. The week that included March 8th was chosen to be Women's History Week. In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women's History Month.

The STCC library has many resources about women's history. Reference books include the following titles: A century of women: the most influential events in twentieth-century women's history, The Columbia guide to American women in the Nineteenth century, Great lives from history. American women series and What every American should know about women's history: 200 events that shaped our destiny.

The STCC library even has a database dedicated to the history of women in the United States: American Women's History Online. This is one of our new Facts on File history databases (which also include resources on African American History, American History in general, Modern World History, and Ancient and Medieval History). There are also many websites about Women's History. A few of them are listed in the women's history section of our del.ico.us account. (If you're not sure what del.ico.us is , why don't you try clicking the link and see?)