Women’s History Month
It is expected that March 1987 will be declared National Women’s History Month by a joint Resolution of the US Congress. This year’s theme, “Honoring Generations of Compassion, Courage and Conviction,” was announced by the National Women’s History Project last fall and has been adopted as the focus for school and community programs coast to coast. Congress did not generate this idea unassisted. Since 1979, national organizations of historians, educators, and community activists have been promoting multicultural National Women’s History Week observances for the week that includes March 8, International Women’s Day. In 1979 the Women’s History Institute met at Sarah Lawrence College under the direction of Dr. Gerda Lerner. Molly MacGregor, now the executive director of the National Women’s History Project, inspired the thirty-eight other participants, them selves leaders of national women’s organizations, with the success of her semi-rural community’s Women’s History Week program. Based on this model, one of the final Institute actions was a vow by each conference member to campaign actively for Congressional endorsement of National Women’s His tory Week for 1980.
Countless women’s history programs, modest and elaborate, have been sponsored by groups as diverse as the women they have honored. In hometown parades, Smithsonian Institution panels, classroom skits, Girl Scout oral history projects, and Senior Center lunchtime programs, the past contributions of women have been reclaimed and celebrated nationwide.
Two very popular activities have brought communities and their schools closer together using National Women’s History Week as their focus. In one, creative writing competitions focusing specifically on women of import to young writers and to society have been organized at every level, from single school sites to entire states. Through the other, volunteers called “Community Resource Women”—bankers, factory workers, medical specialists, and artists, as well as historians—have met with students to share their knowledge and experiences in the context of a class room discussion. Both programs have furthered students’ interest in the broad topic of women’s history, which their teachers, parents, and communities are clearly supporting with increased enthusiasm.
A New Center for Habsburg Studies
In 1984 the Groupe d’Etudes de la Monarchie des Habsbourg was founded as part of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Europeennes of the University of Stras bourg. Under the direction of M. Jean Paul Bled, the center has published since 1985 the journal Eludes Danubiennes. As the title indicates, the journal focuses on the Danube area and its nationalties as well as on aspects of Habsburg affairs. In May 1986 the center convened a conference “Universites et Cultures clans la Monarchie des Habsbourg, 1815-1918.” Scholars from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia as well as from France, Austria, and Italy presented papers. The center would welcome international cooperation. The journal accepts articles in any discipline in French, English, or German. For subscriptions to the journal and additional information, write the director, M. Jean-Paul Bled, Groupe d’Etudes de la Monarchie des Habsbourg, l.H.E.E., 8 rue des Ecrivains, 67081 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
