[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 9 (Monday, March 6, 1995)]
[Page 337]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6773--Women's History Month, 1995

March 1, 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.
    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]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on March 
3.