March is Women's History Month

Once again it is time to commemorate and celebrate the women who came

before us. Who were the women who blazed trails and changed our lives

forever?

In Colonial America, women owned property and businesses. They held down farms as men marched off to do combat for a new country. Some women marched off, too, disguised as men. Deborah Sampson completed her ride to tell patriots that the British were coming, unlike Paul Revere who stopped short.

During the revolution women supported the Continental Army by following marching men, washing clothes, doctoring the sick and preparing large quantities of food. Some soothed savagery and spied.

Women were often left behind to ‘man’ block houses where families fled to be protected by marauding British and Native Americans. Witty Kate Steele in South Carolina was one such woman who taught the women to shoot as straight as the men while the men of the families were out fighting.

During the War of 1812 women filled many of the same roles as they had in the American Revolution.In 1848, the women who started their own revolution, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott called for the first Women’s Right Convention in Seneca Falls and put into words the desire to the elective franchise and to partake in the political history of this nation.

Winchester, IN native Amanda Way, a birthright Quaker, called for Indiana’s first Women’s Rights Convention at a Congregational Friends meeting in Greensboro, IN in January 1851 to be held in October that same year. Many Hoosiers took part in this struggle, women and men. There are names you have never heard of in every county of this state who did their bit.

Do a little research and find out about Seth Hinshaw, Robert Dale Owen, Dr. Mary Frame Thomas, Hannah Hiatt. During the Suffrage struggle many Indianapolis women participated as well. Find out what you can find out and add your findings to our celebration of Women’s History Month.