March 8 is not celebrated in America, but the entire month of March is Women’s History Month.
It is believed that this way they emphasize the role of women in the history, culture and social life in the United States.
This tradition was invented in California. In 1978, Sonoma County School District officials organized a week-long series of events celebrating women’s contributions to American history. Presentations were given at dozens of schools, hundreds of students took part in an essay contest on the theme “A Real Woman,” and a parade was held in the city of Santa Rosa.
Officials in other counties liked it, and in just a few years the tradition of celebrating women’s contributions to society in this way spread across the country.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week beginning March 8 as National Women’s History Week. The U.S. Congress followed suit the following year, passing a resolution to establish a national holiday. In 1987, the National Women’s History Project petitioned Congress to make March Women’s History Month. It was so resolved.
Pocahontas and Sacagawea
Pocahontas (1595 – 1617)is the world’s most famous Native American princess thanks to Disney. In fact, the story of her life was certainly not at all as presented in the cartoon.
Sacagawea (Sacagawea, sometimes spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea, 1788 – 1812) was the sister of a Shoshone chief; she made history by assisting the famous explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their first overland expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific Coast and back (1804-1806). Sacagawea spoke the languages of several Indian tribes and helped Lewis and Clark explore lands in the west that had just been acquired from the French (the so-called Louisiana Purchase, a deal made in 1803 that expanded American territories).
Sacagawea not only helped negotiate with Indian tribes, helping the expedition move forward. She also taught the white Americans how to forage for food: using pointed sticks, she dug up turnip tubers, wild artichokes, and taught them to recognize edible herbs. Moreover, during the expedition Sacagawea gave birth to a son (in 1805) – just imagine how difficult it must have been for a pregnant woman on the road, and even in those days.
Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, Anne Jarvis and Sonora Dodd
Ann Maria (Anne Marie) Reeves Jarvis was a U.S. Civil War volunteer and activist in whose memory Mother’s Day was founded.
In the United States, Mother’s Day became a national holiday in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional proclamation honoring the humanitarian work of Anna Maria (1832-1905). Anna Maria had fourteen children, of whom only four survived – the rest died of diseases common at the time. So Reeves, the daughter of a pastor and wife of a successful businessman, was active in fighting various diseases in her home state of Virginia, helping poor families living in unsanitary conditions. She also hired helpers who trained young mothers to manage their households and monitor the health of their families. Gradually, the clubs she founded became part of the movement for the development of health care in America, and the memory of the selfless work of mothers became a reason to honor every American mother and grandmother.
It was Anne Jarvis (1864-1948), Anne Marie’s daughter, who also added her name to the country’s history.
Ann Jarvis traveled to various states and personally persuaded governors to vote in favor of the establishment of this holiday. True, the resolution on Mother’s Day was adopted with a caveat: it is a holiday not in honor of working or socially active women, but in honor of wives and mothers, keepers of the home. To this day, it is still customary for Americans to spend Mother’s Day with their families.
To Sonora Smart Dodd (1882 – 1978), American society owes the appearance of a holiday honoring fathers on the calendar.
Sonora, the daughter of Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, proposed to celebrate Father’s Day to be able to express gratitude to all caring and devoted fathers, participating equally with mothers in the upbringing of children. The fact is that after the death of her mother, all parental burdens and care for the future Mrs. Dodd and her five siblings fell on the shoulders of their father. The local authorities supported Sonora’s idea and even intended at first to organize a celebration on June 5, William Smart’s birthday, but due to time constraints they postponed the festivities for several weeks. Father’s Day was first celebrated in America on June 19, 1910. Gradually it turned from a local event into a national one, and in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson declared Father’s Day a national holiday, celebrated every third Sunday in June.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) is a name known to every former Soviet schoolchild. We know her as the author of the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Americans know her as a famous abolitionist, one of the first white women to join the fight against slavery.
Susan Brownell Anthony
Susan Brownell (1820-1906) was a pioneer of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States and president (1892-1900) of the National Woman Suffrage Association, which she founded with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She grew up in a politically active family, her parents belonging to the abolitionist movement. At first, Miss Susan was active against slavery and for limiting the production and sale of alcohol in the United States. One day she was denied the opportunity to speak at a convention: they said that women do not belong here. And that was the beginning of her fight for women’s rights. She realized that no one would take women in politics seriously if they didn’t have the right to vote, writing, “There will never be full equality until women themselves help pass laws and elect legislators.”
Harriet Tubman
Araminta Ross, who entered American history as Harriet Tubman (1820-1913), was born into a slave family in Maryland. She tried twice to escape from slavery, and the second attempt was successful. Once in the territories of the northern states, she first worked in Pennsylvania, then New York, spending most of her earnings helping other fugitive slaves. In 1850, a law was passed authorizing the prosecution and arrest of fugitive slaves, but Tubman did not stop – and for her capture was set a fabulous reward of 12 thousand dollars! She was one of the organizers of the Underground Railroad, a route that took fugitives from the southern states to the northern states. By the time the Civil War began, she had freed her family, including her brothers and sisters, in this way. Surprisingly, Harriet’s husband, a free African American, did not support his wife in her struggle, discouraged her escape attempts, and then married someone else.