About Women's History Month Since 1910, March 8th has been observed as International Women's Day by people around the World. That is why March was chosen to be National Women's History Month in the United States, declared as such by a biennial Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress since 1987.

Inspirational Quotes from Women Trailblazers

I am where I am because of the bridges that I crossed. Sojourner Truth was a bridge. Harriet Tubman was a bridge. Ida B. Wells was a bridge. Madame C. J. Walker was a bridge. Fannie Lou Hamer was a bridge. --Oprah Winfrey

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it.  You have an obligation to change it.  You just do it one step at a time. --Marian Wright Edelman

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. --Eleanor Roosevelt

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. --Maya Angelou

I want to do it because I want to do it.  Women must try to do things as men have tried.  When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others. --Amelia Earhart

When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don't overexplain, then anyone can overhear me. --Toni Morrison (The first American-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.)

I don't know that there are any shortcuts to doing a good job. --U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch — what make you go beyond the norm. --Cicely Tyson

A Personal Tribute...

Designed by Anita S. Lane
Copyright ©2005 by Anita S. Lane

Top (Left to right):  Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Bessie Coleman, Dorothy Dandridge, Rosa Parks, Marian Wright Edelman, Shirley Chisholm.  Bottom (Left to right):  Harriet Tubman, Madame C. J. Walker, Wilma Rudolph, Toni Morrison, Mae Jamison, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey

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Links to women's history links and other sites about women

Famous Firsts by American Women
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womensfirsts1.html

National Women's Hall of Fame
http://www.greatwomen.org/

Distinguished Women
http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/

National Women's History Project
http://www.nwhp.org

Women in World History
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/

The First Ladies of the United States
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/index.html

Scholastic's Women's History Page Links
http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/womhst/index.htm

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Book List

African American Women

• Africana : The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience by Kwame Anthony Appiah (Editor), Henry Louis, Jr. Gates (Editor)
• Black Women in America : An Historical Encyclopedia (2 vols.) by Darlene Clark Hine (Editor), Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Editor), Elsa B. Brown (Editor)
• The Book of African-American Women : 150 Crusaders, Creators, and Uplifters by Tonya Bolden
• The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage by Susan Altman
• Fifty Black Women Who Changed America by Amy Alexander
• Great African-American Women by Darryl Lyman
• I Dream a World : Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America by Brian Lanker (Photographer), Barbara Summers (Editor), Yvonne Easton (Editor), Maya Angelou
• The Soulful Divas: Personal Portraits of over a dozen divine divas from Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, & Diana Ross, to Patti LaBelle, Whitney Houston, & Janet Jackson by David Nathan, Luther Vandross (Foreword)
• Viewfinders : Black Women Photographers by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe

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BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Mothers of Invention: From The Bra to the Bomb, Forgotten Women and their Unforgettable Ideas, by Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek. Nuclear fission, pink champagne, drip coffee, the ice cream cone — all were invented by women. Grades 9–adult.

Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States, by Sheila Keenan. Meet more than 200 notable women from the 1500s to today. Grades 4 and up.

Women Who Dared, by Valjean McLenighan. Biographies of six women who found adventure and satisfaction in unusual accomplishments make exciting reading. Grades 4–8.

Female Leaders: Profiles of Great Black Americans. Richard Rennert, ed. Eight contemporary and historic African-Americans whose lives have been dedicated to human equality. 64 p. Grades 5–8. Chelsea House, 1994.

First-Start Biographies: Young Helen Keller: Woman of Courage. Anne Benjamin. (32 p. each. Grades K–2. Troll, 1992.)

First-Start Biographies: Young Amelia Earhart: A Dream to Fly. Susan Alcott. (32 p. each. Grades K–2. Troll, 1992.)

First-Start Biographies: Young Harriet Tubman: Freedom Fighter. Anne Benjamin. (32 p. each. Grades K–2. Troll, 1992.)

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