National Women’s History Month

National Women's History Month is an American observance held during the month of March to recognize and celebrate women's contributions to culture, history, and society. It grew from International Women's Day, a global celebration of women's achievements celebrated each year on March 8, and the Women's History Week celebration, which was first held in Sonoma County, California, in 1978. In 1987, US Congress officially established the month of March as Women's National History Month.

Background

National Women's History Month grew out of the women's rights movement of the early twentieth century. In 1908, garment workers in New York City went on strike to fight for better economic conditions. Strikers marched from lower Manhattan to Union Square; they paid homage to the 1857 garment workers' strike, in which workers fought for equality and ten-hour workdays. The Socialist Party organized a national observance for women on February 28, 1909, which was designated Women's Day. On March 8, 1911, several countries began observing International Women's Day as a global celebration of women's achievements and contributions. The United Nations (UN) officially recognized the day in 1975.

In the years that followed, feminist activists in the United States continued to work for women's rights. They demanded that women be recognized for their contributions to American history since women's achievements had been mostly left out of the history books. In the 1970s, a group of women in Sonoma County, California, began work on getting the area's school curriculums revised to include historical information about women. An idea for Women's History Week to be celebrated in early March grew from this in 1978. The observance eventually spread to other schools throughout California, where students participated in several events to celebrate women, including an essay contest and a parade in Santa Rosa.

In 1979, one of the organizers of Women's History Week, Molly Murphy MacGregor, spoke about the events of Sonoma County's 1978 celebration at a conference with the Women's History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Gerda Lerner, who was a chairwoman at the Women's History Institute, began to organize a group to work on making the week a national observance. Groups around the country began to organize similar celebrations, and they lobbied Congress. Eventually, President Jimmy Carter issued a presidential proclamation designating Women's History Week an official national observance to be held March 2 through March 8 in 1980. As the week was observed in subsequent years, the dates changed.

That same year, Representative Barbara Mikulski and Senator Orrin Hatch cosponsored a resolution for National Women's History Week for 1981. The joint sponsorship demonstrated the political support for the observance. Word of the celebration spread across the country, and state departments of education urged school districts to add National Women's History Week lessons and celebrations to their curriculums to further support the achievements of women. Many schools developed special programs and sponsored essay contests in support of the week. In the years that followed, thousands of schools and communities throughout the United States celebrated National Women's History Week.

Due to the dates changing every year for the observance of the week, groups began to lobby for a National Women's History Month. By 1986, fourteen states had extended the week, celebrating March as Women's History Month. The following year, Congress passed a proclamation to establish March as the official National Women's History Month. President Ronald Reagan issued a presidential proclamation for National Women's History Month.

Topic Today

Every year, the US president continues the tradition and issues a presidential proclamation for National Women's History Month. Organizations, schools, and municipalities throughout the country offer various services and hold programs to celebrate women during the month. Additionally, the National Women's History Alliance, which helped to organize the observance, chooses a theme and honorees each year.

National Women's History Month continues to be a time to remember women's contributions and achievements and to remind women to continue the fight to achieve full equality. Women made history in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee for US president. However, she lost the November election to Republican candidate Donald Trump; many Republicans also were elected to Congress. After the election, women began organizing protests and marches to continue to fight for their rights, which some felt were being challenged by the incoming administration. On January 21, 2017, more than 2.6 million people worldwide participated in nearly 700 women's marches. The largest march was held in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the nation's capital to protest Trump's first day as president. They protested against the new administration because they feared that the Republican-led Congress would begin to limit women's civil, human, and reproductive rights, all of which women fought so hard to secure. Protesters also cited other issues, including the environment, criminal justice, climate change, education, and marriage equality, as reasons for the march.

Many women also feared the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court case that established a woman's right to an abortion, when Trump appointed conservative Supreme Court justices. This ultimately occurred in June 2022, when the US Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion and argued that Roe v. Wade had been wrongly decided. The decision prompted further women's protest marches and rallies in Washington, DC, and nationwide in support of reproductive rights both immediately after the overturning and, in subsequent years, on the anniversary of the original decision. Women's protest marches and other actions continued into the mid-2020s, sometimes in collaboration with other movements like the No Kings protests, which began in 2025 to protest Trump's second presidential term.

Bibliography

MacGregor, Molly Murphy. "Why March Is National Women's History Month." National Women's History Alliance, nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/womens-history-month-history/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

McDonald III, John T. "Women's History Month Reminds Us We Must Work Together for Full Equality." Times Union, 13 Mar. 2017, blog.timesunion.com/johnmcdonald/womens-history-month-reminds-us-we-must-work-together-for-full-equality/4507. Accessed 13 Mar. 2017.

Przybyla, Heidi M., and Fredreka Schouten. "At 2.6 Million Strong, Women's Marches Crush Expectations." USA Today, 22 Jan. 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/21/womens-march-aims-start-movement-trump-inauguration/96864158. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

Totenberg, Nina, and Sarah McCammon. "Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade, Ending Right to Abortion Upheld for Decades." NPR, 24 June 2022, www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

Williams, Brenna. "A Brief History of Women's History Month." CNN, 2 Mar. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/womens-history-month-politics. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

"Women's History Month 2026." History, 6 Feb. 2026, www.history.com/topics/holidays/womens-history-month. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

"Women's History Month." Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, womenshistory.si.edu/womens-history-month. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

Women's March, 2026, www.womensmarch.com. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.

Zorthian, Julia. "This Is How March Became Women's History Month." Time, 29 Feb. 2016, time.com/4238999/womens-history-month-history. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.