It began as a small-town school event in California in 1978 and continues around the United States to this day. The month of March has been designated to recognize influential women and their work. Each year, a different theme is selected so different women are recognized each year. This year, the theme is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination which celebrates women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
This year the National Women’s History Project will be recognizing:
- Pediatrician and microbiologist Hattie Elizabeth Alexander who developed the first effective remedies for Haemophilus influenza
- K-12 STEM educator Marlyn Barrett who is a project director for a grant which provides professional development for 135 teachers in 14 countries
- Ophthalmologist and inventor Patricia Era Bath who invented the Laserphaco Probe which was an important milestone in the advent of laser cataract surgery
- Physician Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first fully accredited female doctor in the United States and founded the first medical school for women with her sister
- Physicist Katharine Burr Blodgett who was the first woman awarded a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge
- Electrical engineer Edith Clarke who was the first woman professor of electrical engineering in the US
- Molecular microbial ecologist and scientific administrator Rita R. Colwell who served as the first woman Director of the National Science Foundation
- Primatologist and naturalist Dian Fossey who wrote Gorillas in the Mist which documented her study of gorillas and the need to protect them from the constant threat of poachers and neglect
- Molecular cell biologist Susan A. Gerbi whose research team devised a method to map the start site of DNA replication at the nucleotide level
- Mechanical engineer and roboticist Helen Greiner who co-founded iRobot Corporation
- Computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper who was a pioneering computer scientist and Rear Admiral in the United States Navy
- Anthropologist and archaeologist Olga Frances Linares who is a senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
- Architect Julia Morgan was the first woman admitted to the architecture program at l’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris
- Physician and pathologist Louise Pearce who was a physician and pathologist with the Rockefeller Institute and worked with a team who found a cure for African Sleeping Sickness
- Mathematician Jill Pipher who is president of the Association of Women in Mathematics
- Mechanical engineer Mary G. Ross was the first woman engineer at Lockheed’s Missiles Systems Division and the first known Native American woman engineer
- Atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon is the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Virologist and molecular biologist Flossie Wong-Staal is a pioneering researcher of retroviruses and with her team deciphered the structure of the HIV virus as the cause of AIDS
In 1996, the National Women’s History museum was founded. It is a non-profit organization which preserves and celebrates the many historic contributions of women. While there is no permanent site yet, the organization is trying to make its way to the Capital by working with Congress to give the museum a permanent home in Washington, D.C.
Along with these things, March 3 this year represents 100 years since suffragists marched in Washington. This march happened to be the first civil rights parade to use the nation’s capital as its backdrop.
This month, try to do something that incorporates learning about the history of influential women in the United States. You may be influenced to do something to change the history as well.