- Person
- Gerda Lerner
- Lived
- 1920–2013
- Field
- Women’s history
- From
- Austrian-American
The story
Gerda Lerner, a Jewish refugee from Vienna who became one of the founders of the academic field of women's history, believed that history should belong to everyone, not only to scholars. At Sarah Lawrence College she had built the first graduate programme in women's history, and she looked for ways to carry the subject beyond the classroom.
From 13 to 29 July 1979 she chaired a 15-day Women's History Institute at Sarah Lawrence, co-sponsored by the college, the Women's Action Alliance, an umbrella group of 100 women's organisations, and the Smithsonian Institution. Forty-three elected leaders of women's organisations, from the National Council of Jewish Women and B'nai B'rith to the Girl Scouts and the American Association of University Women, lived together on campus. During the day they received the equivalent of a full semester seminar in American women's history, with readings, papers and group presentations. In the evenings they planned shared cultural events, and discussions ran into the early morning.
The participants were encouraged to take on one large group project. When they learned of the success of a Women's History Week held in Sonoma County, California, in 1978, they chose to make the week a national event. That meant securing a joint resolution of Congress and a presidential signature every year. They took on the task and succeeded.
In February 1980 President Jimmy Carter issued the first proclamation of National Women's History Week, for 2 to 8 March 1980. In it he quoted Lerner directly: women's history is women's right. Congress passed its first joint resolution for the week in 1981, and in 1987 it designated March as Women's History Month.
Lerner wrote that from 1980 on, the celebration of Women's History Week, and later Women's History Month, spread to every state, every county and most communities in the United States. State education departments developed curriculum materials, and thousands of schools began to mark the month each March.
Why it matters
Women's History Month now brings women's achievements into classrooms, libraries and public life across America every March.
About Gerda Lerner
Viennese refugee who became the ‘godmother of women’s history’, teaching one of its first college courses and helping create Women’s History Month.
More about Gerda Lerner
- Gerda Lerner documented Black women's historyGerda Lerner's 1972 anthology Black Women in White America chronicled 350 years of Black women's contributions and was one of the first books of its kind.
- Gerda Lerner founded the first women's history MAAt Sarah Lawrence College Gerda Lerner developed a master's program in women's history, first offered in 1972, the first American graduate degree in the field.
- Gerda Lerner created the first PhD in women's historyAfter moving to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1980, Gerda Lerner established the nation's first PhD program in women's history.
- Gerda Lerner revived the abolitionist Grimké sistersGerda Lerner's 1967 book The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery restored two pioneering abolitionist and women's rights campaigners to history.
- Gerda Lerner taught the first women's history courseIn 1963, while still an undergraduate at the New School, Gerda Lerner taught Great Women in American History, considered the first regular college course in women's history.
Sources
- Gerda Lerner, Women's History Month Jewish Women's Archive
- Gerda Lerner Wikipedia
- Women's History Month Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.