Let’s Celebrate National Women’s History Month

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/themes/theme03.html .

2.Encourage your City Council to make a proclamation. Here’s a sample proclamation: http://www.nwhp.org/whm/themes/proclamation-sample.html .

3.Order these placemats ( http://www.nwhp.org/new_catalog/womens-history-month/womens-history-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/themes/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.infoplease.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-20 and your daughter can read and review “A Picture Book of Helen Keller” –
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823409503/susandunnmome-20 .

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