Women’s History Month
Celebrating the Historic Achievements of Kansas Women

Each year, March is designated as Women’s History Month. Throughout our history, the vision and determination of women have strengthened and transformed Kansas. As we celebrate Women's History Month, let us recognize the vital contributions women have made to our state.

Kansas has a long history of activist women, beginning before Kansas was a state or women had the right to vote. In 1854, Clarina Nichols an educator and newspaper journalist moved to Kansas where as an ardent advocate of suffrage and women’s rights, she traveled the state making speeches.

Women earned the right to vote in Kansas in 1912, eight years before the 19th Amendment was passed. And once women earned the right to vote, Kansans elected women to every public office. Notably in 1978, Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker was the first woman in the country to be elected in her own right to a full term in the US Senate, where she represented Kansans for nearly 20 years. 

Known for her ground breaking achievements in aviation, Amelia Earhart is another great Kansan who broke the gender barrier. Earhart gained national prominence in 1928 as the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane. Of her great feats, Earhart once said "...now and then women should do for themselves what men have already done - occasionally what men have not done--thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action."

These are just a few of the examples of remarkable women who have helped to make Kansas the great state it is today. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we should be proud of these women’s historic achievements as well as the achievements of thousands of others on whose shoulders we now stand. Young women and girls in Kansas live in a state where the barriers for future opportunities have been broken long ago, and the possibilities for their success are unlimited here in the Sunflower State.

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