Proclamation 6773

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Women have made inestimable contributions to our country throughout our Nation's history. Some have names we recognize. Clara Barton. Harriet Tubman. Susan B. Anthony. Eleanor Roosevelt. And Rosa Parks. But women's history is also about the countless women whose names we do not know-the millions of women of courage and commitment who have served this society as doctors and scientists, teachers and factory workers, marathoners and mothers. At home and in schools, in offices and congregations, in our Armed Forces and our communities, women have helped to build this Nation and keep it strong. It is in their honor that we pause to celebrate Women's History Month each year.

The story of women's accomplishments in America is long and proud. Patriots such as Dolly Madison and Harriet Beecher Stowe put their concern for country ahead of their own well-being in order to advance the principles of justice and freedom upon which this Nation was founded. Writers and artists such as Emily Dickinson, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Martha Graham enlivened our culture, extended our horizons, and expanded our appreciation of the world around us. And in recent decades, women have made enormous strides. The pioneers such as Jane Addams, founder of Chicago's Hull House and our first woman Nobel Prize winner, and Frances Perkins, our first woman Cabinet Officer, have paved the way for ever growing numbers of women running businesses and universities, serving as governors and diplomats, conducting orchestras and exploring space, helping to lead our land toward a new century.

Yet barriers remain. Women now work for pay in greater numbers, in more occupations, and for more years of their lives than ever before, but too many must still settle for compensation far below what it should be, and too many still find their potential curbed by glass ceilings. And women still struggle every day, in tests of resourcefulness and devotion, to balance the demands of work and family. If freedom and opportunity are truly to be the law of the land, we must sustain and renew our commitment to the principle of equality that is our American heritage and work to remove the obstacles that stand in the way.

Women's History Month offers us an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of all of the women who have enriched our Nation. I encourage Americans to learn about women's history-this month and throughout the year. Only by studying the history of America's women-their triumphs and their struggles-can we understand the history of America.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim the month of March 1995 as "Women's History Month." I ask all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities, and to remember year-round the many and varied contributions that women make each day.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and nineteenth.

William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 9:18 a.m., March 2, 1995]