Kick-Off Women’s History Month at Pawtucket’s Annual Celebration
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March 9, 2021Kick-Off Women’s History Month at Pawtucket’s Annual Celebration
March is Women’s History Month, and over this month we will share some women’s history in the Blackstone Valley. However, first we will start with the origins of Women’s History Month.
Women’s History Month originated as a celebration in 1981 when Congress passed public law 97-28, which authorized the President to proclaim the week of March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” It was not until 1987 that a new public law, 100-9, would proclaim the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” Since then Presidents have issued resolutions proclaiming March as Women’s History Month.
However, you may ask why March? Well that goes back even earlier to a single day in 1908 in New York City when thousands of women marched for better labor laws, conditions and the right to vote. A year later on February 28, a gathering was organized by socialists and suffragists for what they called International Women’s Day. In 1910, an International Conference of Women was held in Copenhagen. It was there that 100 women in attendance, representing 17 countries, agreed International Women’s Day would be honored on March 8. However, the United States did not fully adopt International Women’s Day until 1975. Learn more.
For the past seven years, Pawtucket has celebrated International Women’s Day to kick off Women’s History Month. Most years the committee has held the event appropriately at Slater Mill. However, this year the event will be held virtually on Monday, March 8th from 10:00-11:30 am. Event Information.
Click here to watch City of Pawtucket video announcement for the event
Slater Mill has been the perfect location to kick-off Women’s History Month in the valley, as it was here that women factory workers led the first factory strike due to an increase in labor and a pay cut. On May 26, 1824, 102 women at Slater Mill started the strike or “turnout” as it was then called. Joined by community sympathizers, they blocked the entrance to Slater Mill, shutting down the mill operation. The strike then spread to several other mills and nearly 500 workers walked off the job. After several days of civil unrest, the mill owners eventually came to a compromise; and the strikers returned to the factories on June 3. Read more.
Another little known fact that is rarely mentioned at Slater Mill is that Hannah Wilkinson Slater, daughter of Oziah Wilkinson and wife of Samuel Slater, was one of the first women to file for a patent to the Patent Office. The patent was for her method of producing sewing thread from cotton Read more.
International Women’s Day is also an opportunity for young people to get involved. Each year the City of Pawtucket works with local students to present a Women’s History Poster Project. From Doctor Nicole Alexander-Scott to our women on the front-lines of the pandemic; from Amelia Earhart to Greta Thurnberg; the talented students of the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for Arts celebrates Women’s History Month with a poster video of some of their heroes.
Who are some of the women you admire? Let us know on social media by tagging @tourblackstone. We will share a few women of the Blackstone Valley that we admire over the next month.
