February Highlights in U.S. Women's History

• Feb 1, 1978 - First postage stamp to honor a black woman, Harriet Tubman, is issued in Washington, DC.
• Feb 4, 1987 - First National Women in Sports Day is celebrated in Washington, DC.
• Feb 6, 1973 - Government Printing Office rules that the prefix "Ms." is acceptable optional identifying label in government publications.
• Feb 9, 1973 - First convention of National W omen's Political Caucus meets in Houston, TX.
• Feb 12, 1962 - Eleanor Roosevelt becomes first chair of the President's Commission on the Status of Women.
• Feb 15, 1921 - The Suffrage Monument, depicting Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott and carved by Adelaide Johnson, is dedicated in the nation's capitol.
• Feb 21, 1980 - AFL-CIO votes to reserve 2 seats on its 35 member executive team for a woman and a member of a minority group.
• Feb 24, 1912 - Henrietta Szold found Hadassah, the world's largest and oldest women's Zionist organization focusing on healthcare and education in the US and Israel.
• Feb 27, 1922 - US Supreme Court upholds the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees women the right to vote.

February Birthdays

• Feb 1, 1878 (1950) - Hattie Wyatt Caraway - First woman elected to the US Senate (1932) and first woman to preside over the Senate in 1943
• Feb 4, 1913 - Rosa Parks - "Mother of Civil Rights Movement;" her arrest after refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, leads to Dr. Martin Luther King's bus boycott and eventual Supreme Court decision to integrate buses.
• Feb 4, 1921 - Betty Friedan - Author, The Feminine Mystique (1963); Cofounder of National Organization for Women (NOW)
• Feb 13, 1906 (1990) - Pauline Frederick - First woman network radio and TV broadcaster to receive the coveted Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, when women were rarely allowed in the business
• Feb 15, 1820 (1906) - Susan B. Anthony - Leader of 19th century women's right movement; strategist; lecturer
• Feb 16, 1870 (1927) - Leonora O'Reilly - Labor organizer; founding member of Woman's Trade Union League; helped found NAACP
• Feb 21, 1855 (1902) - Alice Freeman Palmer - Educator; Founded American Assn. of University Women (AAUW) in 1882
• Feb 22, 1876 (1938) - Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) - Writer; Sioux Indian activist; founded National Council of American Indians (1926)
• Feb 27, 1902 (1993) - Marian Anderson - Contralto; sang to 75,000 at famous Easter concert at Lincoln Memorial in 1939