Women's History Calendar

April Highlights in US Women's History

  • April 26, 1777 - American Revolution heroine Sybil Ludington, 16, rides 40 miles by horseback from town to town during the night to warn the Connecticut countryside of invading British troops.
  • Apr 7, 1805 - Sacagawea leads Lewis and Clark to the Pacific coast
  • Apr 5, 1911 - 80,000 people march on New York city's 5th avenue to attend the funeral of those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in late March
  • Apr 2, 1931 - 17-year old Jackie Mitchell, the first woman to play baseball in the minor leagues and be signed to an all-male team as a pitcher, pitches an exhibition game against NY Yankees and strikes out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The next day, the Baseball Commissioner voided her contract, claiming baseball was too strenuous for women. The ban was not overturned until 1992.
  • Apr 12, 1933 - Ruth Bryan Owens is the first woman to represent the U.S. as a foreign minister. She is appointed by President Roosevelt as envoy to Denmark and Iceland.
  • Apr 9, 1939 - Marian Anderson sings Easter Sunday concert for more than 75,000 at Lincoln Memorial
  • Apr 8, 1940 - Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) is elected to the 76th Congress to fill a slot left open by her husband's death. She was the first woman elected to both houses of Congress, serving 8 years in the House of Representatives and 24 in the US Senate. She is a 2003 Women's History Month Honoree.
  • Apr 14, 1977 - 18 women in the House of Representatives form the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues
  • Apr 7, 1987 - Opening of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, the first museum devoted to women artists
  • Apr 28, 1993 - First "Take Our Daughters to Work" day, sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for women. (2003 will be the first "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work" day)
  • April 22, 2005 Earth Day - In recognizing Rachel Carson, a woman who changed America, and her brilliant work and influence on the environmental movement, we have put her revolutionary book, Silent Spring on sale. This book belongs in every school library.

April Birthdays

  • Apr 3, 1934 - Jane Goodall - Primatologist and conservationist; world's foremost authority on chimpanzees
  • Apr 4, 1928 - Maya Angelou - Author, poet (inaugural poet for President Clinton), civil rights activist, dancer, lecturer
  • Apr 7, 1944 (2002) - Julia Miller Phillips - Film producer; first woman to win a Best Picture Academy Award (1973, The Sting) also produced Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Taxi Driver
  • Apr 9, 1888 (1953) - Florence Price - First black woman symphony composer
  • Apr 10, 1882 (1965) - Frances Perkins - First woman cabinet member, (Secretary of Labor as appointed by FDR in 1933); key contributor to the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Act
  • Apr 10, 1903 (1987) - Clare Booth Luce - Playwright; Congresswoman; Ambassador to Italy and also Brazil
  • Apr 10, 1930 - Delores Huerta - Chicana activist; Co-Founder United Farm Workers union
  • Apr 12, 1909 (2001) - Eudora Welty - Writer, won Pulitzer prize in 1973; photographer; winner of National Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, and the French Legion d'Honneur
  • Apr 25, 1918 (1996) - Ella Fitzgerald - "First Lady of Song", internationally renowned jazz singer
  • Apr 13, 1866 (1936) - Anne Sullivan Macy - Teacher of Helen Keller who was blind, deaf, and mute
  • Apr 28, 1927 - Coretta Scott King - Civil rights and peace activist
  • Apr 30, 1939 - Ellen Zwilich - First woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music (1983)