Search results
On March 19, 1911, International Women’s Day was officially marked for the first time. More than one million people celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Women demanded the right to vote, to fight against sex discrimination in the workplace, and to hold public office.
The following year, on March 19, 1911, the first International Women's Day was marked by over a million people in Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. In Austria-Hungary alone, there were 300 demonstrations, with women parading on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, carrying banners honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune.
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
Officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977, International Women's Day first emerged from the activities of labour movements at the turn of the twentieth century...
- 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
People also ask
When did International Women's Day start?
What is the history of International Women's Day (IWD)?
When was National Women's Day celebrated?
Why was International Women's Day celebrated in 1913?
Mar 8, 2018 · How did International Women’s Day start? The impetus for establishing an International Women’s Day can be traced back to New York City in February 1908, when thousands of women who were...
What's the history of International Women's Day? International Women's Day has occurred for well over a century with the first gathering held in 1911. Learn more about IWD's timeline from its historic commencement, right through to the current time.
