[Though International Women’s Day may be more widely celebrated
abroad than in the United States, its roots are planted firmly in
American soil where efforts were made to separate it from its
socialist origins.]
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THE SURPRISING HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY  
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Sarah Pruitt
March 6, 2023
History
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_ Though International Women’s Day may be more widely celebrated
abroad than in the United States, its roots are planted firmly in
American soil where efforts were made to separate it from its
socialist origins. _

Women march through Petrograd on March 8, 1917, to demand bread and
an end to the war, protests that helped lead to the abdication of the
czar. ,

 

Controversy clouds the history of International Women’s Day.
According to a common version of the holiday’s origins, it was
established in 1907, to mark the 50th anniversary of a brutally
repressed protest by New York City’s female garment and textile
workers. But there’s a problem with that story: Neither the 1857
protest nor the 50th anniversary tribute may have actually taken
place. In fact, research that emerged in the 1980s suggested that
origin myth was invented in the 1950s, as part of a Cold War
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to separate International Women’s Day from its socialist roots.

[Activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman addressing a crowd, c. 1916.
(Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)]

Activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman addressing a crowd, c. 1916 
Bettmann/Getty Images

The historian Temma Kaplan revisited the first official National
Woman’s Day, held in New York City on February 28, 1909. (The
organizers, members of the Socialist Party of America, wanted it to be
on a Sunday so that working women could participate.) Thousands of
people showed up to various events uniting the suffragist and
socialist causes, whose goals had often been at odds. Labor organizer
Leonora O’Reilly and others addressed the crowd at the main meeting
in the Murray Hill Lyceum, at 34th Street and Third Avenue. In
Brooklyn, writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (of “The Yellow
Wall-paper” fame) told the congregation of the Parkside Church:
“It is true that a woman’s duty is centered in her home and
motherhood…[but] home should mean the whole country, and not be
confined to three or four rooms or a city or a state.”

The concept of a “woman’s day” caught on in Europe. On March 19,
1911 (the 40th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a radical socialist
government that briefly ruled France in 1871), the first International
Woman’s Day was held, drawing more than 1 million people to rallies
worldwide. With the outbreak of World War I
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1914, most attempts at social reform ground to a halt, but women
continued to march and demonstrate on International Woman’s Day.

Most dramatically, a massive demonstration led by Russian feminist
Alexandra Kollontai that began on February 23, 1917 (according to
Russia’s Gregorian calendar; it was March 8 in the West) proved to
be a link in the chain of events that led to the abdication of Czar
Nicholas II
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the Russian Revolution
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czar’s abdication, the provisional government formed until a
constituent assembly could be elected became the first government of a
major power to grant women the right to vote.

In recognition of its importance, Vladimir Lenin
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Russia’s Communist Party
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Woman’s Day an official Soviet holiday in 1917. Communists in Spain
and China later adopted the holiday as well. (Sometime after 1945, the
terminology shifted, and “Woman’s Day” became “Women’s
Day.”) Until the mid-1970s, International Women’s Day would be
celebrated primarily in socialist countries.

In 1975, recognized as International Women’s Year, the United
Nations General Assembly began celebrating March 8 as International
Women’s Day. By 2014, it was celebrated in more than 100 countries,
and had been made an official holiday in more than 25. Over the years,
however, many celebrations of International Women’s Day strayed far
from the holiday’s political roots. In Argentina, for example, it
was largely commercialized, with men buying flowers and other gifts
for the women in their lives. In China, despite the country’s long
history with International Women’s Day, recent holiday events have
focused on shopping and beauty events, such as fashion shows. 

[A group of French demonstrators marching under the banner of the
Movement for the Liberation of Women (MLF) on International Women's
day, 1981. (Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)]

A group of French demonstrators marching under the banner of the
Movement for the Liberation of Women (MLF) on International Women’s
day, 1981  Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Due to its ties with socialism and communism, perhaps it’s not
surprising that International Women’s Day didn’t catch on in the
United States the way it did in other countries. Recently, however,
international marketing campaigns have brought the holiday (in its
less-political form) further into American culture, complete with
corporate support from PepsiCo and other brands. Other groups are
seeking to reclaim International Women’s Day and return it to its
activist past, by continuing to demand recognition and rights for
women and their labor.

_Sarah Pruitt is a writer and editor based in seacoast New Hampshire.
She has been a frequent contributor to History.com since 2005, and is
the author of Breaking History: Vanished! (Lyons Press,
2017), which chronicles some of history's most famous
disappearances._

* International Women's Day
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* revisionist history
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