Women's History Month, 1995

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Part IV

The President

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Proclamation 6773--Women's History Month

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Title 3--
The President

Proclamation 6773 of March 1, 1995

Women's History Month, 1995

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. [[Page 12102]]

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.

(Presidential Sig.)>