This year’s theme is “Women Pioneering the Future”. According to
the National Women’s History Project, this includes both
“pioneering women from US history, who led and won struggles for
equality and civil rights, created and advanced educational and
professional opportunities, and made great contributions to the
arts, sciences, and humanistic causes, and innovative women of
today who further these efforts and continue to expand the
frontiers of possibility for generations to come.”
Here are some ways to join the celebration:
1.Order the official poster: http://www.nwhp.org/whm hemes
heme03.html .
2.Encourage your City Council to make a proclamation. Here’s a
sample proclamation: http://www.nwhp.org/whm
hemes/proclamation-sample.html .
3.Order these placemats (
http://www.nwhp.org/new_catalog/womens-history-month/womens-histo
ry-month2.html ) and take them to work, your children’s school
cafeteria, a charity, your place of worship. Banners, buttons,
bookmarks and balloons also available!
4.Check out power contact websites listed here for working
women, and add your own!
http://www.womenworking2000.com/power_contacts/docs/websites.html
.
5.Read up on this year’s honorees: Rebecca Adamson, Native
American advocate; Rachel Carson, Scientist and
Environmentalist; Linda Chavez-Thompson, Labor Leader; Mae C.
Jemison, Scientist, Educator, and Former Astronaut; Yuri
Kochiyama, Civil Rights Advocate; Tania León, Composer and
Conductor; Robin Roberts, Broadcast Journalist; Harilyn Rousso,
Disability Rights Activist and Psychotherapist; Margaret Chase
Smith, Congressional Representative and Senator; Wilma L.
Vaught, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired; Rebecca Walker, Youth
Organizer and Writer. Go here: http://www.nwhp.org/whm
hemes/honorees03.html .
6.Read about these great women’s museums and the go visit one
near you: National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, Ft. Worth,
Tx.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, DC;
Women of the West Museum, in Denver, Colorado; International
Women’s Air and Space Museum, in Dayton, Ohio; U.S. Army Women’s
Museum, in Fort Lee, Virginia. Go here for links to their
websites: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/whmmuseum1.html .
7.See how you do on the Groundbreaking Women Quiz:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/quiz/whm2/1.html>http://www.infopl
ease.com/spot/quiz/whm2/1.html .
Sample question: Former Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
(1880-1965) was the first woman to be appointed to a
presidential cabinet. Which leader did she serve under?
(Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, or Calvin Coolidge?).
8.Find out what these women have in common: Sara Teasdale, Anne
Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Harper Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Wendy
Wasserstein …
You guessed it – they’re Pulitzer prize winners. For complete
list, go here: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0771154.html .
9.And what women have won the Nobel Prize? Start with Madame
Curie, two-time winner – in 1903 in physics, and in 1911, for
chemistry. Then her daughter won the Nobel Prize for chemistry
in 1935. Go here to learn about the women Nobel Prize winners
from all over the world:
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0801697.html .
10.Notable Women Ancestors is looking for you!
It’s comprised of women’s biographies and genealogy data of
notable women in history and not-so-famous women submitted by
actual living descendants. Get on it!
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa .
11.Help your daughter make her own listmania of books she’s read
about women:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/fil-create/104-3462612-7770322
.
12.And do some reading and book reviews together. You can start
with “To Love This Life,” quotations by Helen Keller:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0891283471/susandunnmome-2
0 and your daughter can read and review “A Picture Book of Helen
Keller” -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823409503/susandunnmome-2
0 .