“From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.” –from President Jimmy Carter’s message designating March 2-8, 1980, as National Women’s History Week
March has been Women’s History Month! While in February, we paid extra attention to the historical contributions of African Americans, this month we are paying homage to the women that history sometimes forgets.
What is the genesis of this commemoration?
Like Black History Month, Women’s History Month started out as a one week celebration. It started in California in 1978 and was an outgrowth of International Women’s Day which is on March 8. The movement spread to other parts of the country in the following years, and in 1980, President Carter officially proclaimed the week of March 8 as national Women’s History Week. Every year that followed saw a similar presidential proclamation, but in 1987, Congress designated March as Women’s History Month. While similar resolutions were passed between 1988-1994, since 1995, it has been presidential proclamations that have perpetuated the official observance of Women’s History Month.
The national Women’s History Alliance curates yearly themes for Women’s History Month celebrations. Since 2020 made fully celebrating the centennial of women’s suffrage difficult, this year’s theme, “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced” continues the suffrage theme while also nodding at the continued work of women in fighting for various rights for all people in challenging times.
In this forum, we want to focus attention on women who have had an impact on Indiana and improved the quality of life for our communities. While we can’t write paragraphs about all of them (after all, historians better trained than us have made it their lives’ work), we did want to provide some highlights, categories, and resources in one place to make your investigation into Women’s history a little easier.
There are a few women in particular that have significant roots in the tri-state, such as Albion Fellows Bacon, who was the wife of a local successful merchant. She fought for housing reform that set the stage for statewide housing laws. She had an impact nationwide through speaking engagements and lobbying efforts. Many of you are familiar with our local Albion Fellows Bacon Center that is huge local resource in fighting domestic and sexual violence.
Additionally, we cannot ignore the growing number of women owned businesses shaping the economies of our communities and beyond. Plus, many charitable organizations wouldn’t exist without the volunteerism of women who serve on boards and committees. Locally, in years past, our Southwest Indiana Chamber of Commerce has recognized outstanding women leaders in the community with their annual ATHENA Awards.
In the lists that follow, you can see the wide ranging ways that Indiana Women have impacted the world.
Human Right, Civil Rights, and Suffrage
- Albion Fellows Bacon (housing)
- Kathleen Flossie Bailey (civil rights)
- Helen Beardsley
- Grace Julian Clarke
- Rhoda Coffin (prison reform)
- Marie Edwards
- Marie Stuart Edwards
- Helen Gougar
- Eva Mozes Kor
- May Wright Sewall
- Sallie Wyatt Stewart
- Amanda Way
Aviation and Military
- Willa Brown
- Margaret Ray Ringenberg
- Dorothy Stratton (coast guard officer)
Academics, journalism and science
- Mary Bostwick (journalist)
- Frances A. Cordova (First female president of Purdue University)
- Helen Murray Free (Chemist)
- Elinor Ostrom (First women to win the Nobel Prize in Economics)
- Beulah Wright Porter (physician)
- Gene Stratton-Porter (author/naturalist)
- Lillian Thomas Fox (journalist)
Lawyers, Politicians and Businesswomen
- Elizabeth Fletcher Allen (lawyer)
- Eleanor Barket (lawyer AND suffragette)
- Vivian Carter (recording executive)
- Daisy Riley Lloyd (politics)
- Loretta Rush (first female chief justice of the state supreme court)
- Madam CJ Walker (business–first self-made female millionaire)
Who are the current women in your life who are making an historical impact in your community? So many of our women REALTORS® sit on boards and lead community organizations with great passion and energy in addition to astutely guiding their many clients through the home buying and selling process. Kathy Briscoe and Gretchen Muchnick, help lead our company with vision, care and grace. They exemplify women in leadership and inspire all of us here at F.C. Tucker Emge REALTORS® to regularly pay our civic rent by being involved in our community. We’d love to hear from you about what women in your life are making history. Let’s Talk!
If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into women’s history in the next year, take a look at these resources to get started:
Women’s History Trail: More than 20 sites are marked throughout the state as part of the Indiana Women’s History Trail, a network of historic markers placed around the state, commemorating the contributions of women to Indiana history
Ten Influential Women in Indiana
