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February's Women's History
Birthdays and Historic Events

February Highlights in US 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 by Presidential Proclamation. 
• Feb. 12, 1869 - The Utah Territory passes a law allowing women to vote.  
• Feb 15, 1921 - The Suffrage Monument, depicting Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia
  Mott, and carved by Adelaide Johnson, is dedicated at the U.S. Capitol.
• Feb 15, 1953 - Tenley Albright is the first American woman to win the World Figure Skating championship. 
• Feb 17, 1870 - Esther Hobart Morris became the first American female Justice of the Peace.  
• Feb 24, 1912 - Henrietta Szold founds Hadassah, the largest Jewish organization in American history, focusing on healthcare and education in the Israel and the United States. 
• Feb 24, 1967 - Jocelyn Bell Burnell makes the first discovery of a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star. 
• Feb 25, 1986 - Corazon Aquino sworn in as the first woman President of the Philippines. 
• 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, D-AR) and first woman to preside over the Senate in 1943  
• Feb 3, 1821 (1910) - Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, First woman awarded a medical degree in US (1849)  
• Feb 3, 1874 (1946) - Gertrude Stein, Poet; Author;  Art critic; Famous for: "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"  
• Feb 4, 1918 (1995) - Ida Lupino Film director and actor            
• Feb 4, 1913 (2005) - Rosa Parks - "Mother of Civil Rights Movement;" her arrest after refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  With her consent, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson along with a colleague and two students mimeographed 35,000 handbills calling for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, which eventual led to the Supreme Court decision to integrate buses.  
• Feb 4, 1921 (2006) - Betty Friedan, Activist; Author of "The Feminine Mystique" (1963); Cofounder of National Organization for Women (NOW) (1966) 
• Feb 5, 1905  (1999) - Mirra Komaroysky,  Barnard College sociologist and author       
• Feb 7, 1867 (1957) - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Author of beloved "Little House" books  
• Feb 9, 1944 - Alice Walker, writer, first African American woman to win Pulitzer Prize for fiction, for "The Color Purple" (1983)  
• Feb 10, 1927 - Leontyne Price, Grammy award winning opera singer  
• Feb 10, 1907 (1992) - Grace Hamilton, First African-American woman to win election in 1966 in the Deep South 
• Feb 11, 1925 (1998) - Aki Kurose, Anti-war activist and advocate for Hiroshima victims 
• Feb 13, 1906 (1990) - Pauline Frederick, Journalist; First woman network radio correspondent (1939); First woman to moderate a presidential debate (1976)  
• Feb 14, 1891 (1977)   Katherine Stinson, First female pilot to set records in stunts (1914), distances (1915), and duration (1916).   
• 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 18, 1931 - Toni Morrison , Pulitzer Prize winning novelist; First African-American to win Nobel Prize for Literature (1993)  
• Feb 20, 1902 (1995) Katharine Way, Nuclear physicist who developed the Way-Wigner formula for fission-produced decay.       
• Feb 21, 1855 (1902) - Alice Freeman Palmer, Educator; Founded predecessor organization to American Assn. of University Women (AAUW) (1881) 
• Feb 21, 1903 (1977)  -  Annis Nin,  Author  
• Feb 21, 1936 (1996) -  Barbara Jordan,  Congresswoman; Constitutional lawyer; Medal of Freedom recipient  
• Feb 22, 1876 (1938) - Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sha), Author; Sioux Indian activist; Founded National Council of American Indians (1926)  
• Feb 22, 1892 (1950) - Edna St. Vincent Millay, First woman to receive Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1923)  
• Feb 22, 1900 (1996)  - Meridel LeSueur, Poet; Write; Advocate for Native American land rights.  
  
• Feb 23, 1900  (1991) - Elinor Warren,  Pianist and Composer,             
• Feb 25, 1910  (1992)  -  Millicent  Fenwick,  Editor; Congresswoman; Diplomat  
• Feb 27, 1897 (1993) - Marian Anderson, Opera singer; First African-American member of the New York Metropolitan Opera (1955)

Please remember you can always find highlights and birthdates in the women's history calendar in the News and Events section of the National Women's History Project website www.nwhp.org.  Consider forwarding this website with anyone who is interested in women's history. 

Melinda Tremaglio
President Palm Springs
National Organization for Women
melindat@dc.rr.com
760-333-8304

More Chapter News

Coachella Valley Women's Business Center Newsletter

Roe v. Wade 39th Anniversary
Join a Roe commemoration event near you and celebrate with your local NOW chapter! Check here to see our list of actions and events hosted by our grassroots chapter network. *FYI: This page will be updated frequently, so check back often.

Obama Administration Failing Women on Birth Control
NOW President Terry O'Neill writes on The Huffington Post: "As the president of NOW, I hear from a lot of women (and men). Many of them are outraged right now, and they're asking the same question: Can this be real -- is the White House actually caving in to the radical right on birth control?"

NOW to Obama: Women Who Elected You Need You To Support Birth Control
NOW calls on President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to retract the department's decision to overrule the FDA's recommendation on Plan B One-Step, and to keep all religious exemption clauses out of the Affordable Care Act regulations on insurance coverage of birth control.

Tell President Obama, Secretary Sebelius "Reverse Plan B Decision"
Take action NOW to reverse this outrageous and purely political decision to overrule the FDA's determination that a form of emergency contraception is safe, effective and should be available over the counter with NO age restriction.

Tell President Obama: Free The Pill From the Bishops!
Take Action NOW! President Obama is on the brink of a decision that could deny access to basic birth control. Under intense lobbying from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the president is poised to potentially expand an already sweeping refusal clause that allows employers to deny birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Letter Urges Congress to Reauthorize VAWA (PDF)
The National Task Force Against Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women (of which NOW is a member organization) sent a letter to Congress asking for support in reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. VAWA's programs support state, tribal and local efforts to address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.

Emergency Contraception Betrayal: Does President Obama Really Oppose Family Planning?
In a stunning betrayal of women, the Obama administration has sided with radical right politics in rejecting the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to remove an age restriction on emergency contraception.

NOW Urges Obama Administration Not to Cave in to Catholic Bishops
The National Organization for Women calls on the Obama administration to stand up for women and not give in to demands from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that would deny birth control coverage for millions of women.

Letter Urges President to Reject Refusal Clauses (PDF)
NOW President Terry O'Neill sent a letter to President Obama opposing all refusal clauses in regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act that would allow organizations to deny contraceptive coverage to employees. Reportedly, Catholic bishops are pushing for broader exemptions, even though a sweeping refusal clause is already in interim regulations.

Please call Melinda for any questions about PSNOW-
760-333-8304