Encyclopedia of Motherhood

1570 B.C.E.—Queen Nefertari of Egypt defies cultural conventions by serving as adviser to her husband, King Ahmose, and co-rules Egypt with her son after her husband's death.

1473 B.C.E.—Queen Hatsheput, a co-regent of Egypt along with her minor stepson since 1479, declares herself Pharaoh. Her tenure as ruler is the longest in Egyptian history for a female.

Circa 1250 B.C.E.—The Romans begin celebrating mothers by honoring the Mother Goddess Cybele each March.

350 B.C.E.—Greek philosopher and empiricist Aristotle generates the theory that a woman's uterus travels throughout her body in response to internal forces that include the woman's own emotional state. Aristotle also posits that women are imperfect men who have never truly developed physically.

1405—French writer and single mother Christine de Pizan publishes The Book of the City of Ladies in an effort to rebut character attacks on women by presenting them as mothers, wives, and political and social leaders through the eyes of Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice.

1533—Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, becomes Queen of England. Later the same year she gives birth to Elizabeth I, who becomes one of the best-loved English monarchs of all time. Three years after Elizabeth's birth, Boleyn is beheaded for high treason. In reality, her only crime is that she fails to provide the king with a male heir.

1568—The first incidence of planned family colonization in North America begins with the arrival of 225 Spanish settlers in what is modern-day South Carolina.

1587—One day after her arrival at Roanoke Island, British immigrant Eleanor White Dare gives birth to daughter Virginia, the first English child born in America.

1607—Twelve-year-old Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhattan, saves the life of Englishman John Smith. In 1614, Pocahontas marries Englishman John Rolfe and gives birth to a son.

1608—Anne Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras, are the first Englishwomen to arrive in Jamestown, Virginia. Forrest's fate is unknown, but Burras marries John Laydon and bears four daughters.

1620—Arriving on the Mayflower, 13-year-old Mary Chilton is the first English female to set foot on Plymouth Rock. Her arrival is depicted in the painting The Landing of the Pilgrims. Chilton marries fellow Pilgrim John Winslow and gives birth to 10 children.

1630—Nurse and midwife Tryntje Jones immigrates to the United States from the Netherlands and becomes the first female to practice medicine in America.

1632—Commonly known as “The Woman's Lawyer,” The Lawes and Resolutions of Women's Rights: A Methodical Collection of Such Statutes and Customes, With the Cases, Opinions, Arguments and Points of Learning in the Law, as Do Properly Concerne Women becomes the first English-language book to be published on the rights of women. The author, who is known only as T. E., offers a detailed summary of marriage, divorce, courtship, and custody laws.

1637—A pregnant Anne Hutchinson, who ultimately gives birth to 15 children, is convicted of sedition in Boston because of her religious beliefs. She and her family are banished to Rhode Island.

1650—The poems of Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the mother of eight, are published without her knowledge in London, earning her a place in history as the first American female poet to be published in England.

1680—Robert Filmer's Patriarcha defends the divine right of kings and the patriarchal system, which withholds political rights from women and prevents mothers from having authority over themselves and their children.

1689—John Locke's Two Treatises of Government is published posthumously, refuting Robert Filmer's arguments. Locke contends that mothers have equal authority with fathers over the children they have created.

1692—The Salem Witch Trials begin in Massachusetts. Mary Easty, the mother of seven, is among the victims. She and seven other accused witches are hanged on September 22.

1702—After the death of her brother William III, Queen Anne succeeds to the English throne. None of her 17 children survive her, and her German nephew, George III, becomes the king of England when she dies in 1714. His subsequent actions lead the American colonies to rebel against the Mother Country in 1776, creating the United States of America.

1704—On February 29, mothers in the settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, watch in horror as French and Abenaki attackers kill 25 children. Many victims are infants who are killed by bashing their heads against hard objects.

1716—The State of New York issues its first licenses to midwives.

1773—After helping to disguise the men who take part in the Boston Tea Party as Mohawk Indians, Sarah Bradlee Fulton becomes known as the Mother of the Boston Tea Party. During the Revolution, Fulton serves as a courier for American troops.

1776—On March 31, as the Continental Congress considers the ramifications of creating a nation, Abigail Adams writes to her husband John, a delegate and future president, chiding him to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” Four of the Adams's six children live to adulthood, and John Quincy became the sixth president of the United States in 1824.

1776—Although she never has children of her own, Mother Ann Lee becomes the matriarch and founder of the Shaker Colony in New York's Albany County.

1776–1777—During the desolate winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, when American troops are starving, Catherine Littlefield Greene remains with her husband, Major General Nathanael Greene. Over the next eight years, Greene bears five children, naming the first two after George and Martha Washington.

1784—Midwife Martha Ballard, who gave birth to nine children, dies at the age of 77. She leaves a diary chronicling her lengthy career and depicting the daily lives of women in 18th-century America.

1789—Known as “Lady Washington,” Martha Washington, who has survived both of the children from her first marriage, moves into presidential headquarters with her husband and two grandchildren when George Washington becomes the first president of the United States.

1790—Along with other women, mothers who meet suffrage requirements are enfranchised in New Jersey. Woman suffrage is rescinded in the state in 1807.

1792—Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer living in France, publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Women to refute the patriarchal argument that women do not deserve political rights because they are inherently incapable of rationality. Five years later Wollstonecraft gives birth to daughter Mary who pens the classic Frankenstein in 1818.

1793—Catherine Littlefield Greene, the widow of General Nathanael Greene and the mother of five children, proposes that her boarder Eli Whitney invent the cotton gin. Whitney's invention revolutionizes the cotton industry and inadvertently increases the demand for slaves in the American South.

1797—Mother and daughter philanthropists Isabella Graham and Joanna Graham Bethune establish the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and Small Children in New York City.

1800—Abigail Adams becomes the first in a succession of First Ladies to live in the White House. Her husband John loses the election to his friend and nemesis Thomas Jefferson, and the Adams family returns to Massachusetts after only a few months in Washington, D.C.

1805—Weeks after giving birth, Sacajawea, a Sho-shone, begins serving as an unofficial guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The nursing mother leads the explorers across thousands of miles from the Dakotas to the Rocky Mountains.

1811—During a 3,500-mile trek from Missouri to Oregon, Marie Dorian, gives birth to her third child while serving as a guide to fur-trading magnate John Jacob Astor.

1812—American missionary Ann Hasseltine Judson gives birth to two children while serving in Burma. Neither child survives.

1819—Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of King Kamehameha of Hawaii, inherits his throne, along with their son Liholiho (Kamehameha II). She establishes the first legal code of the islands, which include the right to trial by jury.

1821—Lucretia Mott, the mother of six children, is officially recognized as a minister by the Society of Friends. An active abolitionist, Mott soon realizes that women are discriminated against within the movement.

1821—A strong supporter of British writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah Mather Crocker, a Bostonian mother of ten, publishes Observations on the Real Rights of Women.

1824—Mary Randolph, a member of the Virginia elite, publishes the first American cookbook. Of her eight children, only four survive to adulthood.

1826—Thomas Jefferson dies at Monticello after using his prodigious legal skills to write a will leaving his estate directly to his daughter Martha, bypassing the existing mandate that married women's inheritances become the property of their husbands.

1827—Former slave Sojourner Truth convinces a court of law that her son Peter has illegally been transported to Alabama as a slave in violation of New York's 1810 law ensuring gradual emancipation.

1828—Sarah Buell Hale, the widowed mother of five young children, begins publishing Ladies' Magazine.

1832—The Boston Lying-In Hospital is founded as a training ground for physicians. Unlike the poor women who become patients, the city's more affluent women continue to give birth at home.

1836—Angelina Grimké, who has relocated from Charleston, South Carolina, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, issues An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South in which she draws attention to the fact that large numbers of black children are sired by white slave owners. Southerners are so incensed by her accusations that postmasters ban the book throughout the South.

1837—Queen Victoria of England succeeds to the British throne at the age of 18. The mother of nine children, Victoria's reign of 64 years is the longest in British history.

1838—In Alexandria, Virginia, a slave woman strangles two of her four children to prevent their being sold into slavery. The other children are rescued before they suffer a similar fate.

1843—Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes generates heated debate by arguing that many new mothers are dying from puerperal fever because physicians spread germs by not washing their hands between seeing patients.

1847—Scottish physician James Simpson is the first to use anesthesia to mitigate the pain of childbirth.

1847—In Vienna, a study is released indicating that the death rate in male-operated maternity rates is 437 percent higher than in a similar ward run by midwives.

1847—A daughter is born to abolitionists Abby Kelly and Stephen Symonds Foster. The couple agrees that she will continue to lecture on slavery and women's rights while he remains at home with baby daughter Alla.

1848—After meeting at the London Anti Slavery Convention where women are hidden behind a curtain and prohibited from voting, Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott make plans to hold a women's rights convention. The Seneca Falls Convention has significant impact on the life of mothers, demanding that public attention be paid to women's issues ranging from suffrage to the right of married women to control their own property.

1848—New York becomes the first state to pass a comprehensive Married Women's Property Act. The act is motivated not by a desire to extend the scope of women rights but by the desire of fathers to see daughters rather than sons-in-law inherit property.

1849—Elizabeth Blackwell, a graduate of New York's Geneva Medical College, is forced to attend classes for midwives and nurses when she arrives in Paris to begin postgraduate studies. In England, Blackwell is greeted cordially by the medical community with the exception of both males and females who work in the department of female diseases.

1850—Oregon passes the Land Donation Act, permitting a married woman to hold one-half of a couple's allotted 640 acreage in her own name. Single women are also allowed to hold 320 acres.

1851—British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, who later becomes his wife, publish “The Enfranchisement of Women.” Mill is a strong advocate of birth control and insists that men do themselves a disservice by subjugating women and depriving society of all that women have to offer.

1852—Abolitionist and mother of six, Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book is credited with being a direct cause of the Civil War.

1852—Feminist Amelia Bloomer launches a campaign to win the right for wives of abusive husbands to obtain divorces.

1854—Elizabeth Cady Stanton testifies before the New York legislature about the need for married women to gain additional control of inheritances and any wages they earn.

1855—Known as “Jennie June,” Jane Cunningham Croly, a New York Tribune reporter and the mother [Page xliii]of five, becomes the first American woman to work behind the desk of a major newspaper.

1855—Physicians Margaret and Emily Blackwell open the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with an all-female staff. Located in the Eleventh Ward, their clients are mostly immigrants. Throughout its history, the infirmary serves as a significant training ground for female physicians.

1862—German-born Dr. Marie Zakrzewska opens the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. As in the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, the staff of the Boston hospital is composed entirely of females.

1867—After losing her husband and four children in a yellow fever epidemic, Mary Harris Jones, who becomes known as Mother Jones, devotes her life to improving working conditions in the United States.

1870—Louisa May Alcott publishes Little Women in two parts. Volume I follows the lives of Jo March and her sisters Meg, Beth, and Amy through the trials of growing up without their father, who is serving as a Union chaplain during the Civil War. Volume II depicts the lives of the surviving sisters as the eldest marries and gives birth to twins. Two sequels further chronicle the adventures of the March family.

1870—On December 10, the Wyoming Territory grants women legal equality, giving females the right to vote, own property, sign contracts, sue and be sued, and serve on juries. The Utah Territory follows suit, and Eliza A. Swain becomes the first women in the entire world to cast her vote in a general election.

1872—Jane Wells invents the baby jumper, providing mothers with a means of entertaining babies who are not yet walking.

1874—Jennie Jerome, a member of New York's elite, marries Lord Randolph Churchill. Later that year, she gives birth to a son, whom she names Winston. He grows up to be one of the foremost statesmen of the 20th century.

1879—In Copenhagen, Denmark, Henrik Ibsen publishes the play, A Doll's House, in which his protagonist Nora Helmer challenges her husband's contention that her most important role in life is that of wife and mother by insisting that her chief purpose is to be “a reasonable human being, just as you are.”

1880—Based on the rationale that mothers have a serious stake in the education of their children, the women of New York are granted the right to vote in school board elections.

1881—The first birth control clinic in the world opens in the Netherlands. Interested parties flock to the Netherlands to observe the clinic, which becomes the model for clinics in other countries.

1881—At Harvard, Williamina Fleming, a single mother, becomes the first female hired to do mathematical calculations. She is subsequently able to identify and classify some 10,000 celestial bodies.

1889—Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr open Hull House in Chicago to serve the needs of immigrant mothers and their children.

1891—Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, an American, holds a one-woman show in Paris. Although she never became a mother, Cassatt's favorite subjects are mothers and children.

1892—Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman) publishes the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is ostensibly based on her own experiences with postpartum depression.

1897—Led by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the National Congress of Mothers is held in Washington, D.C. Although the two women expect a turnout of only 500 or so, more than 2,000 people attend the conference. This group forms the foundation for the Parent-Teachers Association.

1900—According to government reports, one-half of all babies born in the United States at the turn of the century are delivered by midwives.

1902—Britain establishes a licensing and oversight board for midwives with the passage of the English Midwives Act.

1905—Dancer Isadora Duncan flaunts social mores by giving birth to a child out of wedlock. In 1913, she refuses to marry the father of her second child. Both children are later killed in an accident, and Duncan is killed in a freak accident in France in 1926 when her fashionably long scarf becomes entangled in an automobile wheel.

1906—New York public health official Dr. Josephine Baker encourages new mothers to breastfeed their babies in order to avoid exposing them to milk that may be contaminated.

1907—Women's rights advocates in Austria launch a campaign to win six weeks' maternity leave for new mothers and 10 weeks' leave for nursing mothers.

1907—After the death of her financier husband, Russell Sage, Margaret Slocum Sage, establishes the Russell Sage Foundation and spends the rest of her life being active in philanthropic causes and documenting the history of women.

1908—Julia Ward Howe, the mother of six and the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” becomes the first woman to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

1909—Writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes Herland, a female utopian novel in which the burdens of motherhood are ostensibly lifted by instituting communal nurseries and kitchens.

1910—Writer Kathleen Norris chronicles the living and working condition of Irish immigrants to the United States in Mother.

1911—The new social insurance program in Great Britain provides for maternity allowances in a limited number of cases.

1912—After 10,000 female mill employees join a strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 35 mothers are charged with “child neglect.” Charges are later dropped, and the women are instrumental in the strike's success. Widowed mother Mary Heaton Vorse uses the strike to launch a career as an American labor journalist.

1912—Throughout the United States, debates rage concerning the rights of mothers to maintain custody in divorce cases, and legislators begin addressing the issue of government aid for mothers who are impoverished in cases of divorce and desertion.

1912—Although she never gives birth to a single child, Juliet Gordon Low finds a way to mother generations of young girls by founding the Girl Scouts in Savannah, Georgia.

1914—Congress establishes the second Sunday in May of each year as Mother's Day.

1914—Birth control activist Margaret Sanger, whose mother had experienced 18 pregnancies, is arrested for including information on birth control in The Woman Rebel.

1914—Katharine Anthony, a niece of suffragist Susan B. Anthony, reveals in her study of the impact of harsh working conditions on Philadelphia mothers that 370 mothers have experienced the deaths of 437 babies.

1915—Norway passes the Castberg Law, which provides for children born to “unmarried parents” to carry the father's name and inherit his property as long as paternity is not disputed.

1916—Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, open a birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. After ten days in which they see more than 500 women, most of them poor immigrants, officials shut down the clinic.

1916—Russian-American anarchist Emma Goldman argues that her free speech rights have been violated when she is arrested for publicly advocating birth control.

1917—Government officials actively recruit American women to fill a variety of jobs necessary to the [Page xlv]war effort when the United States enters World War I on April 6.

1917—The Delaware legislature creates the Mother's Pension Fund.

1918—The name of Margaret Sanger's organization is changed from the National Birth Control League to the Voluntary Parenthood League.

1918—The Maternity Center Association is founded to promote better maternity care in the United States.

1919—Divorce rates soar, and the number of single mothers in the United States rises drastically in response to incidences of soldiers infecting their wives with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which they have contracted abroad during World War I.

1919—World War I ends with an Allied victory, and acknowledgment of the numerous contributions of women during the war leads Austria, Canada, Ireland, Poland, and the United Kingdom to grant woman suffrage.

1920—The United States Congress passes the Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing American women the right to vote. Women in Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands are also enfranchised.

1921—In an effort to reduce American infant mortality rates, Congress passes the Sheppard Towner Act, which appropriates matching funds for states to establish maternity clinics. The act is repealed six years later, but Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal includes programs that continue this battle.

1921—General Mills creates Betty Crocker, an idealized homemaker, as a marketing tool.

1923—Suffragist Alice Paul's proposal for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the United States Constitution, which would mandate equal rights for women, is introduced in Congress. The ERA is revived during the women's movement of the 1960s, but opponents manage to block ratification.

1924—The mother of four sons, Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Democrat from Wyoming, becomes the first female governor in the United States after her husband, Governor William Ross, dies of complications from an appendectomy.

1925—Studies indicate that high infant mortality rates in immigrant sections of Pennsylvania and in poor areas of the Deep South are often the result of expectant mothers being overworked, malnourished, and neglected by the medical profession.

1929—In October, the beginning of the Great Depression ushers in a period of intense stress for American mothers who are sometimes unable to feed their children and who are often separated from family members who hit the road to find work.

1932—Twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh, the child of aviator Charles Lindbergh and writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped and subsequently murdered, leading the United States government to make kidnapping a federal crime.

1932–1945—Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt and the mother of five children, assumes unprecedented duties as First Lady because of her husband's physical frailties that resulted from a bout with polio in 1921.

1933—Dr. Gracie Langdon becomes the Child Care Director of Franklin Roosevelt's Works Project Administration, undertaking the responsibility for establishing 2,000 government-funded childcare centers.

1934—A distinctly different kind of mother-daughter relationship is depicted when Fannie Hurt's Imitation of Life becomes a movie. The film focuses on a young biracial woman who rejects her African American mother in order to pass as white in a society that discriminates against those whose African American ancestry is discernible.

1935—The notorious criminal “Ma” Barker, who has formed a bank-robbing gang with her three sons, is gunned down in a shootout in Florida.

1936—Clare Booth Luce's play, The Women, addresses the issue of single mothers displaced in their husband's affections by younger women.

1938—Maria von Trapp escapes from occupied Austria with her husband, Captain Georg von Trapp, and seven stepchildren. Maria gives birth to three children after the escape. In 1959, a fictionalized version of their story is turned into a play, The Sound of Music, which in turn becomes an award-winning movie in 1965.

1939—Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, begins painting at the age of 80. Over the course of the next 20 years, she completes 1,500 works.

1940—In New York, Mary Margaret McBride begins hosting a radio show that targets mothers and other homemakers.

1941—Grieving mothers respond with outrage when the Japanese attack the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, killing 2,403 people. Congress declares war on Japan on December 11, and the lives of American mothers change as their sons and husbands join the military, and American women enter the work world in droves.

1942—Rationing begins in May, and mothers lead the patriotic campaign to conserve essential war materials.

1942—The government begins actively recruiting nurses to serve in the military and intensifies efforts to identify women who chose to remain at home and raise families after graduating from nursing schools.

1943—Mothers who lose sons in World War II become known as Gold Star Mothers. Alleta Sullivan loses five sons at once when the USS Juneau is sunk during a naval battle in Guadalcanal. The following year, their story receives national attention with the releases of the movie, The Sullivans. The United States subsequently institutes a Sole Survivor Policy to protect surviving siblings after a family member is lost in war.

1943—Susan B. Anthony II, a journalist and niece of the noted suffragist, publishes Out of the Kitchen—Into the Wars chronicling the participation of American women, many of them mothers, during World War II.

1945—For the first time in American history, Congress holds debates on drafting women to serve as military nurses. The Nurses Selective Service Act passes Congress but becomes moot when the war ends in April.

1946—In order to reunite families, Congress passes the War Brides Act, allowing the foreign wives of American military personnel to enter the country.

1950—French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex in which she argues that women are always defined as “the other” because males are considered “the norm.” During the following decades, this work continues to have significant impact on the emerging women's movement.

1952—Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England. She gives birth to Prince Charles, the heir apparent and the eldest of her four children, in 1948.

1952—Marion Donovan invents the disposable diaper. Her initial diaper is made from a folded-up shower curtain and absorbent padding.

1952—The Voluntary Parenthood Leagues changes its named to Planned Parenthood Association and continues to be a major force in family planning.

1953—On January 19, actress Lucille Ball becomes the most famous mother in television history by giving birth to Little Ricky on the popular sitcom I Love Lucy. The show garners a 72-percent audience share. That same night, Ball gives birth to her real-life son, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

1953—Ethel Rosenberg, the mother of two small children, is executed for espionage along with her husband Julius. The case continues to arouse controversy for decades, and many people believe Ethel, unlike her husband, was innocent of the crime.

1955—In August, 14-year-old Emmett Till is brutally murdered by segregationists while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, allows Jet to publish photographs of her son's mutilated body so that Americans can understand the impact of violence against innocent African American children. Two men confess to the murder, but they are never brought to justice.

1956—In Illinois, a group of seven nursing mothers found the La Leche League to promote breastfeeding. The group, which evolves into an international organization, continues to promote the health benefits of nursing and provides advice to nursing mothers.

1957—Writer Better Friedan polls her former classmates from Smith College to determine whether or not they are fulfilled as mothers and wives. She finds widespread dissatisfaction, and identifies this phenomenon as “the problem that has no name.”

1957—In Little Rock, Arkansas, Daisy Bates, a newspaper publisher, serves as a mentor for the nine African American students who integrate Central High School. Her civil rights activities earn her numerous awards and the eternal gratitude of African American mothers who dream that their children will be able to live in a more equal society.

1958—The Childbirth Without Pain Association introduces the Lamaze method of childbirth to the United States, encouraging American mothers to experience childbirth naturally.

1959—Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, a tale of transitioning family life in the African American community, wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

1959—At age 41, Phyllis Diller, the mother of five, launches a career as a stand-up comic and becomes one of the best loved American comediennes.

1960—The birth control pill is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Since the pill is the most effective birth control method available to date, it promotes more efficient family planning.

1962—The publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring helps to launch the environmentalist movement in the United States, geared in large part toward making life safer for future generations.

1962—Europe experiences an outbreak of birth defects caused by pregnant women taking thalidomide to control morning sickness. In the United States, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey of the Federal Drug Administration manages to keep the drug off the market.

1963—Jackie Kennedy becomes the only First Lady in American history to be pregnant in the White House. She gives birth on August 7, but Patrick Bouvier Kennedy dies two days later.

1963—Betty Friedan launches the Second Wave of the women's movement with the publication of The Feminine Mystique, arguing that women are dissatisfied with their lives because their individual identities have been submerged by their roles as wives and mothers.

1963—President John F. Kennedy establishes the President's Commission on the Status of Women. States. The commission identifies major issues and concerns that affect the lives of American women.

1963—On Sunday, September 15, four African American mothers lose daughters to civil rights violence when a bomb explodes at a Birmingham, Alabama, church.

1965—Based on the grounds of privacy within marriage, the Supreme Court holds in Griswold v. Connecticut that married couples have a constitutional right to obtain birth control.

1967—Anne Moore invents the Snugli, which allows parents to carry infants close to their bodies while leaving their arms free. The young mother becomes a multimillionaire as sales soar.

1968—In Boston, Massachusetts, members of Mothers for Adequate Welfare campaign for increased aid to mothers of small children by chaining themselves to furniture inside a welfare office.

1968—On April 4, Coretta Scott King, the mother of four children, becomes a widow when civil rights leader the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1968—Pope Paul VI announces that the only method of birth control supported by the Catholic Church is the rhythm method, which involves abstaining from sexual intercourse on days when women are fertile. Determined to engage in responsible family planning, many Catholic women ignore the dictates of the Church.

1968—Singer and actress Diahann Carroll, who plays a single mother on the sitcom Julia, becomes the first African American to headline a regular series on American television.

1970—Affectionately known as “the grandmother of the Jewish people,” Russian-born Golda Meir, who grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes the prime minister of Israel.

1971—Congress passes new legislation that awards federal subsidies for both public and private childcare centers.

1972—In Reed v. Reed, the Supreme Court determines that fathers should no longer be given precedence over mothers when managing estates of minor children. The case clears the way for a new examination of legal discrimination on the basis of sex according to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1973—In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court holds that the right of privacy guarantees pregnant women a constitutional right to obtain an abortion within the first three months of a pregnancy. Roe proves to be one of the most controversial cases in the Court's history, and so-called pro-life advocates launch a campaign to have the decision overturned.

1975—The year is proclaimed the International Year of the Woman, and international and national groups launch a series of programs aimed at improving the quality of life for women and their children.

1975—The first World Conference on Women is held in Mexico City, Mexico, aimed at improving the lives and status of women around the world. Future conferences are held at five-year intervals in a number of other cities.

1976—In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, the Supreme Court decides that a married woman does not have to obtain her husband's consent to obtain an abortion.

1976—In General Electric v. Gilbert, the Supreme Court upholds the right of employers to exclude pregnancy from benefit plans, legitimizing the practice of employers paying benefits for the pregnant wives of male employees but not for pregnant female employees.

1976—Congress passes the Hyde Amendment, stipulating that poor women cannot use Medicaid funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape and endangerment to the life of the mother.

1976—The publication of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born opens debates on the differences between motherhood as experience and motherhood as an ideal espoused by the institution of patriarchy.

1977—The inauguration of Georgian Jimmy Carter draws public attention to his colorful mother, “Miss Lillian.” At the same time, Carter's wife Rosalynn proves to be a hands-on mother to their young daughter Amy.

1978—Congress passes the Pregnancy Discrimination Act as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning workplace discrimination against pregnant women and essentially overturning the Supreme Court's actions two years earlier in General Electric v. Gilbert.

1979—The United Nations General Assembly sponsors the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which produces an international bill of rights for women, specifying behavior that constitutes discrimination and offering solutions for dealing with violations.

1979—In the wake of a scandal over advertising of prepared infant formulas in developing countries, the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) is created to force the manufacturers of baby food formulas to cease unethical practices.

1979—The groundbreaking film, Kramer v. Kramer, highlights changing perceptions of the roles of both mothers and fathers.

1979—China establishes a one-child-per-couple policy designed to limit population growth. The policy proves to be detrimental to female infants who become the victims of infanticide. Other girl babies are abandoned or put up for adoption.

1980—After her daughter is killed by an inebriated driver with three prior convictions, Candy Lightner founds Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), which becomes Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1984. The group is devoted to keeping drunk drivers off the road and educating the public about the dangers of drinking and driving.

1980—The first in vitro fertilization clinic opens in Norfolk, Virginia.

1981—Republican Sandra Day O'Connor, the mother of three sons, becomes the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. She finds her niche by becoming the important swing vote in a number of cases dealing with women and children.

1981–1988—The elections of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush are marked by a period of strong conservatism in the United States. “Reagan-ism” results in significant cuts to programs designed to help poor women and their minor children, and views on abortion become a litmus test for federal judicial appointments.

1984—Running with Minnesota Democrat Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, a Democratic Congresswoman from New York and the mother of three children, becomes the first women in American history to be considered a viable candidate on a major party ticket.

1984—A group of Canadian feminists establish Mothers Are Women to celebrate a mother's right to decide to serve as the primary caregiver for her child.

1985—Congress passes legislation mandating the creation of state programs to collect child support from delinquent fathers.

1985—Divorced mother of two, Wilma Mankiller becomes the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

1986—Teacher Christa McAuliffe, the mother of two young children, is killed when the space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff.

1986—The issue of surrogate motherhood receives national attention when Mary Beth Whitehead, who has received $10,000 to serve as a surrogate for William and Elizabeth Stern, reneges on the agreement. Ultimately, a judge places “Baby M” with Stern, who is her biological father, and Elizabeth Stern adopts her.

1987—The World Health Organization launches the Safe Motherhood Initiative designed to slash maternal mortality in half by the year 2000.

1988—The State of California passes legislation guaranteeing job security for mothers who take maternity leave.

1988—Toni Morrison's Beloved wins the Pulitzer Prize. Based on a true story, the novel tells the story of Sethe, a slave woman who kills her daughter to prevent her from becoming a slave.

1989—In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the conservative Supreme Court allots states greater control over access to abortions without overturning Roe v. Wade, as had been predicted.

1990—For the first time, the term “mommy track” is used to describe professional women who choose a slower career track that allows them more time with their families over an ambitious fast-track to success.

1991—To celebrate and encourage the contributions of midwives to maternal and child health, the first International Day of the Midwife is held on May 5 and becomes an annual tradition.

1991—In Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court upholds the Reagan/Bush policy of forbidding health care professionals receiving federal funds to inform clients about abortion rights. This so-called “gag rule” is one of the first conservative policies overturned by Democrat Bill Clinton when he assumes office in January 1993.

1992—The year is designated the Year of the Woman in the United States as women are elected to political office at all levels of government and begin using that power to fight for the rights of women and children.

1992—The first Take Our Daughters to Work Day is held on April 28 in the United States to encourage young girls to recognize that their career possibilities are limitless.

1993—Congress passes the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows both parents to take time off to care for a new or adopted baby or a sick child.

1993—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the mother of two, becomes the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. A Democrat, Ginsburg tends to be supportive of women's issues.

1994—Abortion provider Dr. John Byard Britton and clinic escort Lieutenant Colonel James Barrett are murdered at a family planning clinic by radical pro-lifer Paul Hill.

1994—Congress passes the Violence Against Women Act, making it a federal offense to travel across state lines to commit violent acts against a spouse or domestic partner.

1995—The Fourth World Conference on Women is held in Beijing, China, generating the Platform for Action designed to empower women throughout the world.

1996—Democrat Madeleine Albright, the mother of three daughters, becomes the first female Secretary of State in American history.

1996—First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton publishes It Takes a Village in which she argues that raising children should be a societal responsibility.

1998—The Association for Research on Mothering is established as the first feminist international organization exclusively devoted to motherhood.

2001—Former First Lady and popular grandmother figure Barbara Bush becomes only the second woman in American history to become both the wife and mother of a president.

2002—The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) opens an investigation into the possibility of establishing a national policy on paid maternity leave.

2002—A group of mothers in New York found Mothers Ought To Have Equal Rights (MOTHERS) designed to promote economic security and political clout for mothers and others who serve as primary caregivers for children.

2004—Australia passes the lump sum Maternity Allowance and Baby Bonus to assist new parents at the time of a child's birth.

2005—The Save the Mothers Program establishes a Master's Degree Program in Public Health Leadership in Uganda under the leadership of the Intersave Canada Board in an effort to improve the experience of motherhood in developing countries.

2006—Author Leslie Morgan Steiner publishes the Mommy Wars, which includes interviews with 26 mothers who discuss their personal perceptions of motherhood in the 21st century.

2007—The World Health Organization celebrates the 20th anniversary of its Safe Motherhood Initiative as part of an ongoing effort to improve the health of pregnant women and decrease maternal mortality levels.

2007—Former First Lady and current Senator from New York Hillary Rodham Clinton announces her bid for the presidency and becomes the most viable female candidate for high elected office in American history.

2008—Governor of Alaska and the mother of five, Sarah Palin becomes the first Republican female to be considered a viable candidate for the office of Vice President.

2009—Michelle Obama, the mother of two young daughters, becomes the first African American First Lady of the United States.

2009—Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the mother of an adult daughter, is sworn in as the third female Secretary of State in American history.