The last nail.
Results today for the Special election to fill Monserrate’s State Senate seat:
Peralta 66%
Monserrate 27%
Beltrani 7%
Turnout was 14%
Total votes cast 15,260

Lydia Pinkham (1819-1883)
According to Doris Weatherford in American Women’s History, Lydia Estes Pinkham was the first American woman to become a household name through advertising. This is hardly the extent of her claim to fame, of course, for she was also known for her medicinal remedies and business savvy.
Though she herself came from an affluent family, Pinkham’s marriage was marked by financial insecurity, and her husband eventually served time for being unable to pay debts during the Depression of 1873-1879. Like many women throughout American history, financial hardship created an …

Last week, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony on Capital Hill, a long-overdue recognition for these heroic women. They were considered civilians and were not entitled to pay and benefits given to men, nor military honors though some died in service.
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., along with Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Susan Davis, D-Calif., led the push in Congress to get the women recognized.
Hutchison noted at the ceremony that when the unit was disbanded …

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
In school, we had just last month celebrated Black History Month. There were speaker announcements, newspaper articles and classroom discussions all commemorating the importance and history behind the month. This week was “language week” where my school hung posters, had announcements given in foreign languages and held activities for those learning a foreign language. Next week will be “random acts of kindness week”. One thing is surely being disregarded …

Please join The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind and share a cup of coffee with Barbara Ann Radnofsky, 2010 Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General.
Date: Friday, March 12
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Place: Grand Central
To get more information on meeting place, you can email us here.

There are some major events this week surrounding international women’s right.
Yesterday, The New Agenda’s Vice President, Betty Cotton, attended Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards event in Washington DC. Betty reports from the conference: “Gender equity is THE major issue of this century.”
This weekend, I’ll be representing The New Agenda at The Daily’s Beast Women in the World summit. Tina Brown has put together an incredible rooster of women activists from around the world. Tina write today at her website: “The rights of women are to …

Our girls need role models from both the past and the present and all children need to learn about women’s role in history. For these reasons I have become a passionate collector of women’s history picture books and recently I stumbled upon a great one about Esther Morris.
When Esther Morris Headed West: Women, Wyoming and the Right to Vote by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge and illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers is a fascinating read for young and old alike. The beautifully illustrated book chronicles the political activism of Esther Morris, a frontier …

The following piece by The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind is featured at The Huffington Post.
Senator Blanche Lincoln finds herself in the political version of a perfect storm. Her home state of Arkansas is centrist. Predictably, Republicans are chastising her vote for Obama’s health care legislation. Progressive organizations, unexpectedly, are throwing millions of dollars behind a male Democrat to challenge Senator Lincoln in a primary. And shockingly, a women’s organization dedicated to getting women elected says she deserves it. Despite all the darts being thrown at Senator Lincoln from seemingly every …

March 10th is Harriet Tubman Day!
Harriet Tubman is one of our most celebrated American heroines and I was very pleased to learn that she has her own holiday. In 1990 President George H. W. Bush declared March 10 as Harriet Tubman Day and in 2003 Governor George Pataki of New York declared it a state holiday.
Tubman, who was born a slave in Maryland some time around 1820, escaped to freedom at the age of 29. Not content with just her own emancipation, Tubman helped more than 300 slaves to freedom …

March is Women’s History Month! My favorite time of year… Official recognition of women’s history began 30 years ago with then-President Carter’s 1980 Presidential Proclamation recognizing the first Women’s History Week. Seven years later the week was expanded to a month. This was a critical and necessary step for the progress of women, especially because women had been excluded from history, or subject to sexist treatment when they were included. The theme of Women’s History Month this year is Writing Women Back into History, something that is desperately needed, and …