Women’s History Month
2010 Theme: Writing Women Back into History
This year will be the 30th anniversary of the National Women’s History Project (NWHP). When it began mobilizing the lobbying effort that resulted in President Carter issuing a Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980 as the first National Women’s History Week, NWHP had no idea what the future would bring. And then, in 1987, another successful lobbying effort resulted in Congress expanding the week into a month, and March is now National Women’s History Month.
When NWHP began working in the early ‘80s, the topic of women’s history was limited to college curricula, and even there it languished. At that time, less than 3% of the content of teacher training textbooks mentioned the contributions of women and when included, women were usually written in as mere footnotes. Women of color and women in fields such as math, science, and art were completely omitted. This limited inclusion of women’s accomplishments deprived students of female role models.
Today, when you search the Internet with the words “women’s + history + month,” you’ll find more than 40,500,000 citations. These extraordinary numbers give testimony to the tireless work of thousands of individuals, organizations, and institutions to write women back into history.
We invite you to join us in recognizing the importance of women in history. Each new generation needs to draw information and inspiration from the last.
To assist you in your classroom celebration, please visit www.nwhp.org — you will find a resource center that includes a teachers’ lounge, a student center, a parents’ corner, biographies, information on the women’s rights movement, great speeches, pathbreakers, and other topics to help you make your celebration thoroughly enjoyable.
Additional resources may be found at these sites:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_special/women
http://womenshistorymonth.gov/
http://www.history.com/content/womenhist
The theme for 2010 is Writing Women Back into History. It often seems that the history of women is written in invisible ink. Even when recognized in their own times, women are frequently left out of the history books. To honor the 2010 theme, we are highlighting pivotal themes from previous years. Each of these past themes recognizes a different aspect of women’s achievements, from ecology to art, and from sports to politics.