President Biden and Vice President Harris recognize that throughout history, the vision and achievements of women have strengthened our nation and opened the doors of opportunity wider for all of us. To better tell these stories, President Biden signed an Executive Order to strengthen the National Park Service’s recognition of women’s history. This Executive Order, which comes during Women’s History Month, will increase the representation of women’s history in sites across America and help honor the legacy and contributions of women and girls to our country.
Women’s stories and service to our nation have too often gone untold. While the National Park Service has honored trailblazing women—from Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt, to Rosie the Riveter and Mamie Till-Mobley—women remain underrepresented in our national parks, monuments, and in historic sites that the federal government helps preserve. By highlighting the role that women and girls have played in shaping the American story, we will tell a more complete account of American history and help create a more equal future.
To strengthen the recognition of women’s history and the achievements of women and girls from all backgrounds, President Biden is directing the Department of the Interior to:
- Assess the state of women’s representation in the National Park Service. This assessment will determine which existing sites are significant to women’s history, identify potential new historic sites, and offer recommendations to improve the recognition of women’s contributions to our country across the National Park Service, including through the National Historic Landmark program.
- Conduct the first-ever comprehensive review of women’s history by the National Park Service to identify a diverse group of prominent women and girls in key periods throughout U.S. history who merit consideration for recognition in existing federal historic sites, including the American Revolution, the abolition and suffrage movements, World War II and post-war, and the civil rights and women’s rights movements. This review, called a theme study, will include consideration of women from different backgrounds and communities and reflect diversity on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, age, geography, income, socioeconomic status, and other factors.
- Solicit recommendations from the National Park System Advisory Board, working with historians and experts, on opportunities to improve the recognition of women and girls across the National Park System.
The Executive Order builds on actions the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to advance gender equity and equality and improve gender parity in representation and leadership, including the designation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in July 2023. The Executive Order also adds to the President’s historic record of conserving places that help tell a more complete story of America – from designating the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument that protects lands and historic sites near the Grand Canyon that are sacred to Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples to signing legislation to designate Camp Amache – a site that was used to unjustly incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II – as a new unit in the National Park System.
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