[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 149 (Thursday, October 15, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2555-E2556]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              NATIONAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM ACT OF 2009

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 14, 2009

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I stand here before you not 
only as a member of the United States Congress, but as a woman. I fully 
support H.R. 1700, ``National Women's History Museum Act of 2009'', 
this is an issue that I hold dear to my heart. This bill will increase 
awareness and knowledge of women's involvement in history.
  Women's history is a vital part of American history, however it is 
not public knowledge; mostly in part to the lack of women's history 
education in the schools. The establishment of a National Women's 
History Museum would be a great tribute to all of those women whose 
stories are not told in history books. We must celebrate the women who 
paved the way for the rest of us. I thank my colleague Representative 
Maloney, for introducing this valuable piece of legislation.
  Today, women account for 51 percent of the world's population and 
throughout ``woman's-kind'' we have had countless sisters whose 
brilliance, bravery and power changed the course of history. H.R. 1700 
will provide for an establishment which will recognize and honor the 
women and organizations in the United States that have fought for and 
continue to promote women's history.
  A National Women's History Museum will bring awareness to all of 
those women who have broken barriers and glass ceilings for the rest of 
us. Women such as the honorable Speaker Pelosi, the honorable Ruth 
Bader Ginsburg, Shirley Chisholm, Susan B. Anthony, Barbara Jordan, 
Sojourner Truth, Sacagawea, Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, Annie Oakley, 
and the list could go on for miles.
  A museum devoted to women's history will shed light not only on well 
known women of history, but also those less renowned, such as Belva Ann 
Lockwood, who fought for admittance into law school. She fought to 
practice before the Supreme Court and even ran two full campaigns to 
run for President of the United States, although she could not vote.
  In Texas, women such as former Governor Ann Richards, who was an 
accomplished political worker, Texas state treasurer, and Governor of 
Texas. Furthermore, Rosanna Osterman was a Texas pioneer, American 
Civil War nurse and philanthropist. She lived in Galveston, and during 
the 1853 yellow fever epidemic, she erected a temporary hospital on her 
family premises in order to nurse the sick and the dying. Osterman also 
chose to stay in Galveston during the civil war and opened her home as 
a hospital, first to Union soldiers, then to Confederate soldiers.
  American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made 
historic contributions to the growth and strength of our Nation in 
countless recorded and unrecorded

[[Page E2556]]

ways. They have played and continue to play a critical economic, 
cultural, and social role in every sphere of the life of the Nation by 
constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside 
and outside of the home.
  American women have played a unique role throughout the history of 
the Nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of 
the Nation and were particularly important in the establishment of 
early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions in our 
Nation. In addition, American women of every race, class, and ethnic 
background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major 
progressive social change movement. American women have been leaders, 
not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal 
opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation 
movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and 
other movements, especially the peace movement, which create a more 
fair and just society for all; and
  Despite these contributions, the role of American women in history 
has been consistently overlooked and undervalued, in literature and the 
teaching and study of American history which is even more reason to 
dedicate a museum to all of the trailblazing women throughout history.

                          ____________________