Women’s History is Everywhere: 10 Ideas for Celebrating In Communities A How-To Community Handbook Prepared by The President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History “Just think of the ideas, the inventions, the social movements that have so dramatically altered our society. Now, many of those movements and ideas we can trace to our own founding, our founding documents: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And we can then follow those ideas as they move toward Seneca Falls, where 150 years ago, women struggled to articulate what their rights should be. From women’s struggle to gain the right to vote to gaining the access that we needed in the halls of academia, to pursuing the jobs and business opportunities we were qualified for, to competing on the field of sports, we have seen many breathtaking changes. Whether we know the names of the women who have done these acts because they stand in history, or we see them in the television or the newspaper coverage, we know that for everyone whose name we know there are countless women who are engaged every day in the ordinary, but remarkable, acts of citizenship.” —- Hillary Rodham Clinton, March 15, 1999 Women’s History is Everywhere: 10 Ideas for Celebrating In Communities A How-To Community Handbook prepared by the President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History Commission Co-Chairs: Ann Lewis and Beth Newburger Commission Members: Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, J. Michael Cook, Dr. Barbara Goldsmith, LaDonna Harris, Gloria Johnson, Dr. Elaine Kim, Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Irene Wurtzel An Introduction to the How-To Community Handbook Much of the work done by women, pioneers have gone largely Celebration of Women in American Commission’s March 1999 report to individually as volunteers and as unrecognized; most local historical History is publishing this handbook to the President. A complete copy of the members of clubs and organizations, sites identify only the men who lived guide communities in recognizing and Commission report may be obtained has occurred in and for the benefit of there. Whether this is a result of celebrating local women. Included by writing to the local communities. Women founded conscious suppression or ignorance, are suggestions for getting started and U.S. General Services Administration businesses, libraries, hospitals, schools the fact that few women appear in many resources to support the Department of Communications and parks. Women worked side-by- history books or the lore of our heroic organizers as they construct their plans 1800 F St. N.W. side with the men who are ancestors is evident. for making women’s history part of the Washington, D.C. 20405 memorialized as heroes in our fabric of local community life. and via e-mail link at website: communities but most women To increase awareness of the http://www.gsa.gov/staff/pa/whc.htm important roles local women have The How-To Community Handbook played throughout American history, describes in greater detail several of the President’s Commission on the the recommendations in the Ten Celebrations who would listen. They published their guidelines for developing Women’s History Department. Even and How to own newspapers, organized massive community celebrations of women’s if there is not a Women’s History Create Them parades and precinct-level political history. The National Women’s Department, there may be a faculty campaigns and they picketed the White History Project has succeeded in expert in the field. If so, consider House. They encountered insults, raising the national awareness of the scheduling that person as a lecturer Women Win the Right to Vote: Tell the ridicule, abuse and even found importance of women’s history by for women’s groups. Story of Suffrage in Local themselves behind bars to win the designating March as National • Develop a suggested reading list of Communities rights promised in the Declaration of Women’s History Month. women’s history books that parents 1 Independence. • Identify women’s groups in your can read with their children. The year 2000 will mark the 80th community that may already know Reading lists could be researched anniversary of the passage of the Women across the nation were finding the local suffrage history story. Call and developed by various age Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the the most effective ways to organize in your local chapter of the League of groups, with the help of local Constitution. Passage of this their communities, and were using their Women Voters or contact your state teachers. You can ask your local amendment has been acknowledged as voices to make a difference. How did women’s commission. These groups libraries to help compile lists. the greatest expansion of democracy on women work for suffrage in your state? may help identify leaders • Suggest that local libraries organize a single day in our history as a nation. How has their story been passed down knowledgeable about suffrage who story-telling sessions for children Yet the hard-fought battles of the through the generations? could serve as resources for inviting local leaders to share stories suffragists who worked for 72 years to developing your community of the brave women and men who win the right to vote are rarely There is no better way to remember the celebration. achieved the suffrage victory. You remembered. value of our rights as citizens than to • Community groups may choose to can begin by calling your main honor the pioneers who made honor the leaders who organized the library and asking how to contact From the first Women’s Rights women’s rights possible. Celebrate suffrage campaigns and state the local “Friends of the Library” Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, in July, the millennial year by legislators whose votes made group. 1848 to the victory in 1920 when commemorating the 80th women’s votes the law of the • Consult with your local school President Wilson signed the 19th anniversary of women’s land. board to determine whether the Amendment to the Constitution, suffrage. • Organize a conference school system offers a women’s women across America worked in to detail how suffrage history program that includes ever-increasing numbers to win the How to get started telling the introduced change and led the suffrage. Some schools have full rights of citizenship. They went story of suffrage as part of women’s way for sweeping lifestyle changes volunteers who come to class in door-to-door asking for petition history in local communities: for women and their families. historical dress to dramatize and signatures. They stood on ladders on • Contact The National Women’s • Call the public relations office of discuss historic figures. Develop a street corners and wagons parked at History Project (707) 838-6000 or your local college or university to list of teachers in your area who use crossroads giving speeches to anyone www.nwhp.org to request their determine whether there is a this teaching tool and solicit their A HOW-TO COMMUNITY HANDBOOK 1 advice and help in expanding the • Enlist the help of local publicists the field of women’s history. It is unique collection to the South Dakota program. who can promote women’s history important to realize that increased Historical Society, it contained more • Sponsor an essay contest for by contacting local media to spur scholarship requires greater access to than 6,000 women’s stories. Portions schoolchildren about women’s interest in coverage of “verbal original materials, and more attention are now incorporated in “South history, and submit the essays to historians” as a local interest story to finding and cataloguing material Dakota: A Journey Through Time,” a your local newspaper, or publish for the 80th anniversary. related to women. textbook prepared for adult readers. them in your club newsletters. • Ask city officials to place an historical From the papers of famous women like • Begin a Women’s History Book marker to honor the site where a Diaries, letters and other records enable Eleanor Roosevelt to the writings of Ida Club. People could read about suffrage meeting was held. To scholars to study and document the B. Wells, each collection provides new different topic areas: local women’s educate future generations, markers history of women’s lives, yet much of insight into the lives of Americans and history, women and politics, women could include a description of the this material sits unmarked and the history that shapes our future. and medicine, women in wartime, days before women won the vote. unnoticed. Such records could be the women and business, women and source of valuable information that How to get started developing access civil rights, women and education, could make history come alive. A good and archives: women and music, women and example of how these collections • Enhance scholarship by helping literature, etc. Find the “Hidden Women:” Develop contribute to our communities comes scholars and the general public gain • Locate skilled library research Access and Archives from the General Federation of access to original materials. volunteers to review historical Women’s Clubs (GFWC). In 1935, the Volunteer at your local library or microfilm of local newspapers to The2 President’s Commission on the Highmore Woman’s Club in South historical society and focus attention learn more about suffrage activities Celebration of Women in American Dakota established a Pioneer on finding and cataloguing material in your community. Publish their History heard from many speakers Daughters Department to honor the related to women’s history. findings. during their yearlong series of memory and spirit of women who • Increased financial support could • Determine whether local suffragists hearings held across the pioneered in their states.