Why Today Matters for Women's History

[yallerdawg]

Summary: Today the President will designate a national monument for women's equality. Page Harrington talks about why this matters for women's history.

Source: White House Blog by Melanie Garunay

Today the President will designate the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, a site that has been central to the fight for women's equality for over a century, as America's newest national monument. Page Harrington, the site's Executive Director, wrote this message to the White House list to talk about what this designation means for women's history. Didn't get the message? Sign up here.

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One day in 1917, a dozen women gathered in front of the White House. They were staging a silent protest to call for women’s right to vote.

Spectators yelled at them, kicked them, and spit on them. They ripped the women’s banners from their hands and threw them onto the ground.



Undaunted, these women brought those tattered banners back to a house across town. They cleaned them – sometimes carefully re-stitching them – and carried them back out the next day, and the next, and the next.

It’s my job today to preserve those same banners, alongside an extensive collection of other artifacts that showcase the struggle and accomplishments of the movement for women’s equality. I do it all from a house that became their final headquarters in Washington, D.C., known as the Sewall-Belmont House.

Today, on Equal Pay Day, President Obama is permanently protecting this house by designating it as America’s newest national monument.

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Page Harrington
Executive Director
Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument

Read it all at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/04/12/why-today-matters-womens-history

[Lisa D]

1. This is wonderful!

Love this president!!