Each year in celebration of Women’s History month, we present our living history programs to 4th through 8th grade students in four East County school districts. Students, teachers, and we ourselves become keenly aware of the march of change in women’s lives throughout the centuries when we hear these women talk about their lives.
We begin to understand connections between women’s struggles for civil and political rights in parallel historical context with world struggles for peace, for abolition of slavery and the extension of civil rights to all people, and for environmental sanity.
We meet women who are pioneers in every field that once excluded women, e.g., science and technology, law and politics, the military (except as nurses and ambulance drivers), higher education, the skilled trades, all professions, arts and sports.
Some of the women we bring to life in these presentations are Sacagawea, Abigail Adams, Rachel Carson, Kate Sessions, Beatrix Potter, Clara Barton, Sonia Sotomayor, Alice Paul, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Rosalind Franklin, Sally Ride, Sybil Ludington, Eleanor Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony, and Amelia Earhart. We have brought our program to adults in East County too via OASIS classes that have been very well received.
This year marks our 30th year for Women in History in the schools. We hope you will be inspired to join us as your favorite woman in history.