Search results
Known originally as “National Woman’s Day” it was first proposed by Theresa Malkiel and loosely based on the urban legend commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York City, on March 8, 1857.
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: Women's History
Though International Women’s Day may be more widely celebrated abroad than in the United States, its roots are planted firmly in American soil.
Controversy clouds the history of International Women’s Day. According to a common version of the holiday’s origins, it was established in 1907, to mark the 50th anniversary of a brutally repressed protest by New York City’s female garment and textile workers. But there’s a problem with that story: Neither the 1857 protest nor the 50th-anniversary tribute may have actually taken place. In fact, research that emerged in the 1980s suggested that the origin myth was invented in the 1950s, as part of a Cold War-era effort to separate International Women’s Day from its socialist roots.
11 Underappreciated World-Changing Women
The historian Temma Kaplan revisited the first official National Woman’s Day, held in New York City on February 28, 1909. (The organizers, members of the Socialist Party of America, wanted it to be on a Sunday so that working women could participate.) Thousands of people showed up to various events uniting the suffragist and socialist causes, whose goals had often been at odds.
Labor organizer Leonora O’Reilly and others addressed the crowd at the main meeting in the Murray Hill Lyceum, at 34th Street and Third Avenue. In Brooklyn, writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (of “The Yellow Wall-paper” fame) told the congregation of the Parkside Church: “It is true that a woman’s duty is centered in her home and motherhood…[but] home should mean the whole country, and not be confined to three or four rooms or a city or a state.”
The concept of a “woman’s day” caught on in Europe. On March 19, 1911 (the 40th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a radical socialist government that briefly ruled France in 1871), the first International Woman’s Day was held, drawing more than 1 million people to rallies worldwide. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, most attempts at social reform ground to a halt, but women continued to march and demonstrate on International Woman’s Day.
Stream acclaimed women's history documentaries in HISTORY Vault.
WATCH NOW
- Sarah Pruitt
May 31, 2024 · International Women’s Day (IWD) grew out of efforts in the early 20th century to promote women’s rights, especially suffrage. In its campaign for female enfranchisement, the Socialist Party of America in 1909 held the first National Woman’s Day, which was highlighted by mass meetings across the United States; the day was observed until 1913.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Origins. Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910. The earliest reported Women's Day event, called "Woman's Day", [11] was held on February 28, 1909, in New York City. It was organized by the Socialist Party of America [12] at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel. [13]
Feb 15, 2023 · This timeline covers the years of 1789 to 2022, which includes the famed women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the formation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and the passage of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.
Mar 3, 2020 · The first “Woman’s Day” celebration took place in Chicago on May 3, 1908. Organized by the U.S. Socialist Party, it brought together an audience of 1,500 women who demanded economic and...
- 10 min
- 101.8K
- Origins OSU
People also ask
When was National Women's Day invented?
When was women's day first held?
How did International Women's Day start?
What is National Woman's day?
Feb 26, 2019 · From a plea to a founding father, to the suffragists to Title IX, to the first female political figures, women have blazed a steady trail towards equality in the United States. Explore famous...
