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Women's Rights
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Supreme Court upholds Oregon’s 10-hour workday for women.
In Muller v State of Oregon the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Oregon’s 10-hour workday for women. The win is a two-edged sword because the protective legislation implies that women are physically weak. -
Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic.
In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest for distributing information on contraception. She wanted to prevent back-alley abortions, which were dangerous and usually illegal at that time. -
19th Amendment
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a long and difficult struggle. -
Social Security Act gives federal benefits to widows and dependent children.
The Act was drafted during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term by the President's Committee on Economic Security and passed by Congress as part of the New Deal. The Act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and fatherless children. -
Supreme Court rules that women may serve on juries
During the case of Fay vs. New York, the supreme course decided that women can be on juries with men but may or may not choose to do so. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks’s refusal to vacate a “whites only” bus seat in Montgomery, AL, prompts black and white women to join together to fight segregation -
New York Radical Women founded
The protest group was founded in New York City in the fall of 1967, by former television child star Robin Morgan, Carol Hanisch, Shulamith Firestone, and Pam Allen. New York Radical Women were a group of young friends in their twenties who were part of the New Left, who had grown tired of the men who said they should stay at home. -
Congress passes Pregnancy Discrimination Act
In 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, an amendment to the sex discrimination section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act requires employers to treat pregnant women the same as all other employees. It also enables a woman to take 4 months of pregnancy leave, even if she is a new employee, and even if she does not work full time. -
Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space
Sally Kristen Ride is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the youngest person to enter space. In 1987 she left NASA to work at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control. -
Violence Against Women Act
It provided $1.6 billion to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes perpetrated against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted. -
The March for Women's Lives
The March for Women's Lives was a demonstration for reproductive rights and women's rights, held April 25, 2004 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. March organizers estimated that 1.15 million people participated.
