Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.”
All editions of our TV show, New Directions for Women, are archived in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, it is available to historians, scholars, and students in perpetuity. Our program was chosen because of its content and technical level as well as because it is indicative of the many issues of concern to women in the late 20th and early 21st Century.