FSNHS site to present women's history program

Monday, March 19, 2007

In the late 1980s, the U.S. Congress approved a resolution to set March as National Women's History Month. On Saturday, the Fort Scott National Historic Site will present a program in observance of the milestone in women's history.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 24, visitors to the FSNHS will get the chance to interact with women of the 1840s army post. National Park Service volunteers, along with students from Evangel University in Springfield, Mo., will present living history interpretations at the officer's and laundress quarters at the fort.

Also, at 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., presentations on the vastly different lives of these two groups of women will be conducted. Students dressed at laundresses and officer's wives will be available to answer questions and talk with visitors throughout the day. National Park Service ranger Rosie Frey said the program will help visitors understand what women at the fort in the 1840s went through.

"Anytime you can get people at the fort, whether it be officers or volunteers, and can dress them in living history clothing, it really brings those people to life, it brings history alive," Frey said. "So visitors that come can really see, you know, just how difficult it was for the laundresses to wash clothing on the old-fashioned washing boards. Then, in contrast to that, you can go to the officer's quarters and see how the upper class women lived."

For more information about Saturday's programs, call the FSNHS at (620) 223-0310. FSNHS, a unit of the National Park Service, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the winter. There is a $3 entrance fee for adults age 16 and over. Children 15 and under are admitted free.

According to the National Women's History Project Web site, www.nwhp.org, National Women's History Month began as just a week-long celebration in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to the Web site, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution to create National Women's History Week in 1981.

Then, in 1987, the NWHP petitioned Congress to expand the national, week-long celebration to the entire month of March. The resolution has since been approved with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, according to the Web site. Each year, programs and activities in schools, workplaces and communities have become more extensive as information and program ideas have been developed and shared.