Women’s History Month traces its origins to International Women’s Day, which was first observed in the early 1900s.  At that time, in Europe and the United States, women’s rights was a hot topic, and women’s suffrage was a popular cause among women’s organizations.  During the Great Depression the women’s movement went out of fashion, but it was revived after World War II.  With “Women’s Liberation” in the 1960s, interest in women’s issues soared.  By the 1970s there was a growing sense that the history taught in American schools was one-sided and incomplete.  It omitted the contributions not only of women, but also of Native Americans, Black Americans, and other minority groups.  In the 1970s universities began including women’s studies in their curricula.  In March, 1978, schools in Sonoma County celebrated Women’s History Week to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8.  The following July, leaders from the Sonoma group shared their project at a Women’s History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.  Participants agreed not only to initiate their own local Women’s History Week projects, but also to support an effort to have Congress declare a National Women’s History Week.  Three years later Congress passed a resolution establishing National Women’s History Week.  In 1987, at the request of the National Women’s History Project, Congress expanded the week to a month.  Each year since then Congress and the Presidents have passed resolutions, and issued proclamations, designating March as “Women’s History Month.”