- March is Women's History Month! Each day we will share a fun fact regarding the importance of women during this month.
- The Women's History Month theme for 2024 celebrates “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” This year the National Women's History Alliance “will recognize women throughout the country who understand that, for a positive future, we need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely from our lives and institutions.
- March 5: On February 28, 1909 marked the first Woman's History Day in New York City. It commemorated the one-year anniversary of the garment workers' strikes when 15,000 women marched through lower Manhattan. From 1909 to 1910, immigrant women, who worked in garment factories, held a strike to protest their working conditions. Most of them were teen girls who worked 12-hour days. In one factory, Triangle Shirtwaist Company, employees were paid only $15 a week, which equates to roughly $500 in 2024's financial climate. History.com describes it as a "true sweatshop." Young women worked in tight conditions at sewing machines, but factory owners didn't keep the factory up to safety standards. In 1911, the factory burned down, and 145 workers were killed. It pushed lawmakers to finally pass legislation meant to protect factory workers.
- March 6: Wyoming Territory was the first place in the U.S. to grant women the right to vote.
Never take it for granted that you can vote, ladies. The Wyoming Territorial legislature gave every woman the right to vote in 1869, according to History.com. Wyoming also elected the country's first woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in 1924.
March 7: The 19th Amendment didn't give all women the right to vote.
The 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was signed into law on August 26, 1920. But at the time, a number of other laws prohibited Native American women, Black women, Asian American women, and Latinx women from voting, among others. It wasn't until 1924 that Native women born in the United States were granted citizenship, allowing them to vote. Asian American immigrant women received voting rights in 1952, and Black women in 1965. Last of all, it wasn't until 1975 that non-English speaking women were granted voting rights with an extension to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This included predominantly Latinx women.
March 8: Marie Curie was the first person (and only woman) to receive two Nobel prizes.
Curie was a scientist whose research on radioactivity led her to discover two new elements. She also researched the atom, and her findings have been integral in scientific advancements related to atomic bombs and medicine, according to Scientific American. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first person and only woman to win two Nobel Prizes. She won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911.
