Women’s History Month, March 2021
Month of March articles
==History of “Women’s History Week” == “Women’s History Month”
==National Women’s History Museum (after 20 years of promoting the need for such a museum, a Bill was passed in January to create a future building on the Smithsonian National Mall) see separate article 3/18/21
==Local Colorado Programs on Women in History
==Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame see separate article 3/11/21
==Colorado Women write a series of books to preserve Boulder County History – see separate article 3/25/21
Every year March is designated Women’s History Month by Presidential proclamation. The month is set aside to honor women’s contributions in American history.
Did You Know? Women’s History Month started as Women’s History Week
Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year.
In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women’s History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
Subsequent Presidents continued to proclaim a National Women’s History Week in March until 1987 when Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, each president has issued an annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”
The National Women’s History Alliance selects and publishes the yearly theme. The theme for Women’s History Month in 2021 captures the spirit of these challenging times. Since many of the women’s suffrage centennial celebrations originally scheduled for 2020 were curtailed, the National Women’s History Alliance is extending the annual theme for 2021 to “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.
==link to National Women’s History Museum ARTICLES==
TALKS ABOUT WOMEN IN HISTORY, IN THE COLORADO AREA (March & April 2021)
COLORADO WOMEN IN WORLD WAR II
Four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Mildred McClellan Melville, a member of the Denver Woman’s Press Club, predicted that war would come for the United States. Colorado women from every corner of the state enlisted in the military, joined the workforce, and volunteered on the home front. As military women, they served as nurses and in hundreds of noncombat positions. In defense plants they riveted steel, made bullets, inspected bombs, operated cranes, and stored projectiles. They hosted USO canteens, nursed in civilian hospitals, donated blood, drove Red Cross vehicles, and led scrap drives; and they processed hundreds of thousands of forms and reports.
Aurora History Museum Colorado Women in World War II. Wed, April 21, 2021 – 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM MDT – free – but you must Register.
Golden History Museum WE JUST DID IT; COLORADO WOMEN OF WORLD WAR II
Wed, March 17, 2021–6:00 PM – 7:30 PM MDT — free — virtual – must Register
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About the presenter: Gail M. Beaton
Gail M. Beaton is a historian, author, retired teacher, and Chautauqua presenter. She is a volunteer member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Colorado Women’s History at the Byers-Evans House Museum. She serves on the Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board and State Register Review Board. Her first book, Colorado Women: A History, was a finalist for the 2013 Colorado Book Awards and for the 2013 WILLA Award from Women Writing the West. Her latest book, Colorado Women in World War II, was published in August 2020
CENTER FOR COLORADO WOMEN’S HISTORY
Byers-Evans House, Denver. The Center for Colorado Women’s History focuses on scholarship, research, lectures, tours and exhibits that expand the understanding and collective memory of the history of women in Colorado. Most importantly, the Center is connecting local stories to the broader stories of women’s history worldwide. The historic house has been the home to inspiring women since 1883. Guided Tours. Open Fridays and Saturdays; entrance fee. Now offering new adventures = Tour-in-a-box: Women Building Denver
presents————
THE WOMEN’S BANK, A DENVER SUCCESS STORY
March 20, 1:30p.m. – suggested donation $10
Since Colorado’s mineral rush, women proved to be better money managers than men. Yet until the Federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 women had to have a male co-signer, such as a father or a husband. This led to a group of women to found what would ultimately be the most successful of all U.S. Women’s Banks, in Denver. Despite some scoffing males, The Women’s Bank opened in 17th Street’s most elegant office building, the Equitable, on July 14, 1978. The bank took in $1 million its first day and another million in each of its first twelve weeks.
The Women’s Bank thrived until 1994 when it was sold, with very profitable returns to all investors, to the Colorado Business Bank. Meanwhile, the Women’s Bank story helped inspire other banks, where women held only 2% of top management offices, to move women into the top slots.
Join Gail Beaton, Tom Noel, and one of the founders of the Women’s Bank, Judi Wagner.
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Women Artists Respond to Place
By Center for Colorado Women’s History
March 31 – 3p.m. – free – virtual thru ZOOM
The significance of landscapes, places, and narratives of all kinds will be examined through the works of contemporary women artists in Smithsonian collections. The Center for Colorado Women’s History is working with the Smithsonian to spotlight some of the Smithsonian scholars featured in the publication Smithsonian American Women: Remarkable Objects and Stories of Strength, Ingenuity and Vision from the National Collection*. This talk supports the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, designed to create, disseminate, and amplify the historical record of the accomplishments of American women.
Featuring: Tuliza Fleming, PhD, Curator of American Art, National Museum of African American History and Culture
Rebecca Trautmann, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, National Museum of the American Indian
*A portion of book sales through this link supports History Colorado
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“Women’s Hall of Fame” – Display of eight “photos and biographies” at the Estes Park Valley Library, during open hours. The Hall of Fame has lent the portraits for the month of March. (970) 586-8116.
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2021 Love, Light & Empowerment – 4 day Women’s Virtual Zoom Conference
Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:00 AM –
Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 2:00 PM MDT – cost $5
4 days of empowerment with our special guest line-up of Female Published Authors and Entrepreneurs
March is Celebrated as “National Women’s History Month – This gave me an idea! Why not hold a 4 Day Women’s Virtual Zoom Conference and invite the most amazing, talented Women I know that I feel Embody the word “Empowered Woman.” Have these Women help educate others on how many amazing women before us have Stepped out in faith to help humanity and the Greater Good, not for money & fame, but because it was their calling! They will tell us how women in history have influenced them today.
Tickets are ONLY $5 for entrance fee all 4 days & will include an edited video of conference. Coupons, Freebies & Discounts will be offered from all guest speakers as well! 11% of the Proceeds raised will be Announced & used towards assisting a Domestic Abuse Survivor in NEED – this is put on by Jess Intuitive Angel Healer.
Just Released, March 1, 2021: National Women’s History Museum: 2021 Women’s History Month Resource Toolkit
If you have a Women’s History Month event, that is in Colorado, and would like to add it to this list, please contact us at LyonsRecorder.Editor@gmail.com
At this time, we do not find any Women’s History Month Programs at the Boulder, or Longmont Museums.