About Women's History Month
March is Women's History Month
Women's History Month has its origins in Sonoma County, California. In 1978, the Education Task Force sought to address the general lack of knowledge regarding women's accomplishments and organized a "Women's History Week" celebration on the week of March 8th (coinciding with International Women's Day).
The movement was further mobilized in 1979 by Molly Murphy MacGregor and Gerda Lerner, who helped to organize similar celebrations in other communities.
In 1980, President Carter declared the week of March 8th and National Women's Week. By 1986, fourteen states had issued statements declaring March as Women's History Month, and by 1987 Congress solidified March as Women's History Month.
Explore Books by Kentucky Women
Resources
For Researchers
- A Dictionary of Prominent Women of Louisville and Kentucky: Compiled and Written From Material in The Louisville Free Public Library by Louisville Library Collection, Biography Series, volume 3. "The project as planned is designed to bring together into a single volume available biographical information relating to Kentucky Women who have achieved prominence in many fields of activity. The contents include names of women engaged in such a wide range of activity that it would be difficult to group them accurately by subject. A procession of women is presented including exponents of woman suffrage and temperance, actresses, state office holders, civic leaders, musicians, and many others active in various pursuits. All periods of Kentucky history are represented as the biographies start as far back as the pre-revolutionary period in Kentucky and come down to the present day including many women living and active in contemporary affairs."Publication Date: 1940
Women in Kentucky by
In more than two hundred years of statehood, most Kentucky women have been invisible to history. Yet from the first settlement, women have been prominent contributors to Kentucky history and culture. Women in Kentucky tells the stories of the ordinary women of lonely frontier farms, the women both black and white whose lives were shaped by slavery, and the laboring women of the factories and shops in rising urban centers. Helen Deiss Irvin also profiles the exceptional Kentucky women whose lives became more visible: abolitionist Delia Webster, suffragists Laura Clay and Madeline McDowell Breckinridge, philanthropists Mary Breckinridge and Linda Neville, reformer Carry Nation, scholar and educator Sophonisba Breckinridge, and physician Louise Gilman Hutchins. Women in Kentucky casts a new light on the active and full participation of women in Kentucky's long and storied history.
Publication Date: 2009
Kentucky Women by
Kentucky Women: Their Lives and Times introduces a history as dynamic and diverse as Kentucky itself. Covering the Appalachian region in the east to the Pennyroyal in the west, the essays highlight women whose aspirations, innovations, activism, and creativity illustrate Kentucky's role in political and social reform, education, health care, the arts, and cultural development. The collection features women with well-known names as well as those whose lives and work deserve greater attention. Shawnee chief Nonhelema Hokolesqua, western Kentucky slave Matilda Lewis Threlkeld, the sisters Emilie Todd Helm and Mary Todd Lincoln, reformers Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and Laura Clay, activists Anne McCarty Braden and Elizabeth Fouse, politicians Georgia Davis Powers and Martha Layne Collins, sculptor Enid Yandell, writer Harriette Simpson Arnow, and entrepreneur Nancy Newsom Mahaffey are covered in Kentucky Women, representing a broad cross section of those who forged Kentucky's relationship with the American South and the nation at large. With essays on frontier life, gender inequality in marriage and divorce, medical advances, family strife, racial challenges and triumphs, widowhood, agrarian culture, urban experiences, educational theory and fieldwork, visual art, literature, and fame, the contributors have shaped a history of Kentucky that is both grounded and groundbreaking. With contributions by: Melissa A. McEuen, Catherine Fosl, Craig Thompson Friend, Melanie Goan, John Hill, Anya Jabour, William Kuby, Karen Cotton McDaniel, Mary Jane Smith, Andrea Watkins, Thomas H. Appleton, Lindsey Apple, Martha Billips, James Duane Bolin, Sarah Case, Juilee Decker, Carolyn Dupont, and Angela Esco Elder.
ISBN: 9780820347523Publication Date: 2015-04-15
More Suggested Reading
Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia by Publication Date: 2004Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia is a landmark anthology that brings together the work of 105 Appalachian women writers, including Dorothy Allison, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Annie Dillard, Nikki Giovanni, Denise Giardina, Barbara Kingsolver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Janice Holt Giles, George Ella Lyon, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lee Smith. Editors Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson offer a diverse sampling of time periods and genres, established authors and emerging voices. From regional favorites to national bestsellers, this unprecedented gathering of Appalachian voices displays the remarkable talent of the region's women writers who've made their mark at home and across the globe.
Explore
- 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American HistoryGuide by the Library of Congress
- Clara Barton: A Resource GuideGuide by the Library of Congress
- Harriet Tubman: A Resource GuideGuide by the Library of Congress
- Jane Addams: A Resource GuideGuide by the Library of Congress
- Rosa Parks: A Resource GuideGuide by the Library of Congress
- Explore the Work of Female PhotojournalistsCurated by the Library of Congress
- Famous Women in Computer ScienceRecommended by Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama Troop, Curated by Stevens Institute of Technology
Authors
Kentucky Author Form
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Related Guides
- Gender and Women's StudiesUKY Research Guide
- Lesbian StudiesUKY Research Guide