“Weaving the Stories of Women’s Lives” is the theme for National Women’s History Month 2015. The theme presents the opportunity to weave women’s stories – individually and collectively – into the essential fabric our nation’s history.

Accounts of the lives of individual women are critically important because they reveal exceptionally strong role models who share a more expansive vision of what a woman can do. The stories of women’s lives, and the choices they made, encourage girls and young women to think larger and bolder, and give boys and men a fuller understanding of the female experience. Knowing women’s achievements challenges stereotypes and upends social assumptions about who women are and what women can accomplish today.

There is a real power in hearing women’s stories, both personally and in a larger context. Remembering and recounting tales of our ancestors’ talents, sacrifices, and commitments inspires today’s generations and opens the way to the future.

2015 is also the 35th anniversary of the Women’s History Movement and the National Women’s History Project. After decades of dedicated research and technological advances, the stories of American women from all cultures and classes are accessible and visible as never before. Numerous scholars and activists helped shape the Women’s History Movement, and also provided the research and energy which created and sustains the National Women’s History Project. During 2015, the NWHP will recognize and celebrate the many ways that women’s history has become woven into the fabric of our national story.