July
offers a special opportunity to celebrate our democracy.
It is a month filled with political activity from the anniversaries of the first
Independence Day; the first Women's Rights Convention; the day the suffragist
presented the Vice-President with the Declaration of the Rights of Women;
the first time suffragist were arrested for picketing the White House on behalf
of Woman Suffrage; the day that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was signed into law;
the first time a major political party selected a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, to
run for Vice- President; and the day that the first woman to serve as a Supreme
Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Conner, was nominated.
July Highlights
in US Women's History
July 2, 1979 - The Susan B. Anthony dollar is released
July 2, 1937 - Amelia Earhart's plane is lost in the Pacific Ocean near
July 2, 1964 - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act; Title
VII prohibits sex discrimination in employmentWimbledon
title in women's tennis singles
July 7, 1981 - President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor as the
first woman Supreme Court Justice
July 12, 1984 - Representative Geraldine Ferraro (D-New York) is chosen
as the first female to run for Vice President of the
July 14, 1917 - 16 women from the National Women's Party were arrested
while picketing the White House demanding universal women's suffrage; they were
charged with obstructing traffic
July 19-20, 1848 - The Seneca Falls Convention, the country's first
women's rights convention, is held in
July 20, 1942 - The first class of Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)
begins at
July Birthdays
July 7, 1861 (1912) - Nettie Stevens, biologist, discovered X and Y sex
chromosomes
July 8, 1926 (2004) - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, writer and lecturer,
developed techniques for counseling the dying and their families
July 10, 1875 (1955) - Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, served as Minority
Affairs Advisor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt
July 16, 1821 (1910) - Mary Baker Eddy, founded the Church of Christ,
Scientist
July 16, 1862 (1931) - Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, crusader against
lynching
July 12, 1856 (1913) - Louise Bethune, first woman architect in 1881
July 22, 1849 (1887) - Emma Lazarus, poet, wrote "The New Colossus,"
(1883), which was later inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
July 23, 1844 (1929) - Harriet Strong, agriculturist; patented water
storage dams
July 24, 1920 (1998) - Bella Abzug, lawyer, Congresswoman (D-New York),
1972-1976, political activist; initiated proposal for Women's Equality Day
July 28, 1879 (1966) - Lucy Burns, suffragist; formed National Womanfs
Party with Alice Paul; picketed the White House for women suffrage and arrested
6 times
July 28, 1929 (1994) - Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, First Lady,
1961-1963, photographer and book editor; established White House Historical
Association
July 30, 1939 - Eleanor Smeal, womenfs rights activist; publisher of Ms.
Magazine for the Feminist Majority Foundation; president of National
Organization for Women (NOW),1977-1982 and 1985 -1987
National Women's History Project
3440 Airway Dr Ste F
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
http://www.nwhp.org
(707) 636-2888
nwhp@nwhp.org
HOME