The Postal Service will observe Women’s History Month in March.
The commemoration was first observed nationally as “Women’s History Week” in March 1980.
The designated week was chosen to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8, a global event that has been observed since 1911. In 1987, Congress designated all of March as Women’s History Month.
A group now known as the National Women’s History Alliance, which helped lobby for the first observance, picks a theme each year; in 2023, it’s “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.”
One such woman is Toni Morrison, a giant of modern literature who will be honored with a stamp this month. Morrison explored the devastating effects of racism in such classics as “Song of Solomon,” winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and “Beloved,” which received the Pulitzer Prize.
She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, Pearl S. Buck, Nella Larsen, Maya Angelou, Anne Spencer and Ursula K. Le Guin are just a few of the other “women who tell stories” who have been honored with stamps in the past.
The Postal History section on usps.com has more information on women in postal history, including articles on female postmasters and mail carriers.
More information on Women’s History Month can be found at WomensHistoryMonth.gov and the National Women’s History Museum website.