![\"115.](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/03\/115.-Stratton-boarding-Clipper-to-Hawaii-lores.jpg?resize=240%2C300&ssl=1\")
Stratton was Purdue University\u2019s first full-time dean of women from 1933-1942. She took a leave of absence from Purdue to serve in World War II as the director of the Women\u2019s Reserve of the United States Coast Guard, which she ingeniously named\u00a0SPARs<\/a> from the coast guard motto, Semper Paratus<\/em>\u2014Latin for Always Ready<\/em>.<\/p>\n The nautical meaning of SPAR relates to a supporting beam of a ship. The coast guard women were just that\u2014a support\u2014as they took over the men\u2019s stateside military jobs, so the men could go overseas for combat duty. When the war ended in 1947, 11,000 SPARs had served under Stratton\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n In 2012 First Lady Michelle Obama commissioned a coast guard cutter<\/a> in honor of Stratton. It was the first time in history that a Legend-class National Security Cutter was named after a woman, and the first time that a first lady sponsored a military ship. Today, the Cutter Stratton protects America\u2019s shoreline.<\/p>\n In the 1941 Purdue University yearbook, the\u00a0Debris<\/em>, Dean of Women Stratton, age forty-one, was quoted: \u201cTo be interesting, do interesting things.\u201d Stratton lived to be 107, fully living out her mantra. She passed away in 2006. When the war ended, Stratton became the director of personnel for the International Monetary Fund. Through the 1950s, she was the executive director of the Girl Scouts of America. She then served as the representative for the International Federation of University Women at the United Nations.\u00a0Stratton most certainly worked to form a more perfect union through her efforts in public service and government.<\/p>\n Nine of the NWHP 2016 National Women\u2019s History Month honorees are living and most attended the luncheon to accept their acclaim. Their presence and words at the podium created an atmosphere that buoyed the audience.<\/p>\n Two of the elder honorees inched across the stage pushing walkers. We soon learned they were not frail flowers. When they spoke at the lectern, their strong voices and powerful declarations of gratitude were a juxtaposition\u2014a lesson against judging a woman by her cover and an admonition against ageism.<\/p>\n Honoree Sister Mary Madonna Ashton<\/a>, age ninety-two, is the former Minnesota Commissioner of Health who helped pass landmark legislation outlawing smoking in public places. Testifying for days against the tobacco industry, her success on behalf of the state of Minnesota started a nationwide movement. She also addressed the AIDS epidemic, forcing the closure of bathhouses where the disease was spread and instituting mandatory protections of the community\u2019s blood supply.<\/p>\n Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman<\/a>, age ninety, was the first executive at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and is known as the \u201cMother of Hubble\u201d for her contributions to establish the Hubble Space Telescope. Roman\u2019s career was groundbreaking as a woman scientist. She discovered the first clues to the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy, mapped the sky at 67 centimeters, and helped improve the accuracy of measurements to the distance of the moon.<\/p>\n Sonia Pressman Fuentes<\/a>, age eighty-seven, was a cofounder of the National Organization for Women and the first woman attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She articulated and enforced the EEOC\u2019s interpretation of the sex discrimination prohibitions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Fuentes had immigrated to the United States as a child to escape the Holocaust.<\/p>\n Honoree Bernice Sandler<\/a> is the \u201cGodmother of Title IX.\u201d She also coined the term \u201cchilly climate<\/a>.\u201d Despite holding a doctorate degree, Sandler was unable to obtain a full-time faculty position because of the sexism facing women in academia in the 1960s. Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in employment based on sex, it excluded educational institutions. Using an obscure executive order prohibiting sex discrimination by federal contractors, Sandler filed the first federal sex discrimination lawsuits against every college with federal contracts, about 250 in all. This lawsuits drew the attention of Congresswoman Edith Green, who assembled the first congressional hearing on sex discrimination in education and employed Sandler as an expert. The idea for a law banning sex discrimination in federally funded education programs was born. Title IX was signed into law in 1972.<\/p>\n Among the women who were honored posthumously were Daisy Bates<\/a>, the civil rights organizer and leader of the Little Rock School integration in 1957, and Oveta Culp Hobby<\/a>, the World War II director of the Women\u2019s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) and first secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Hobby was a peer and friend of Stratton.<\/p>\n Photos of the honorees appear on a commemorative poster and their stories are written down in the NWHP Gazette,<\/em> available for purchase on the NWHP website for individuals, educators, and groups to recognize and celebrate women\u2019s historical contributions.<\/p>\n More than 300 women have been honored by the NWHP since its inception in 1980. Many of the women selected have been outliers. They courageously stood apart from the milquetoast crowd and the status quo. By following their inner callings, they changed social stereotypes, cultural pressures, discriminatory attitudes, and civil injustices. Each woman bucked some sort of system and won\u2014perhaps not a victory for her immediate private ambition\u2014but, like a New World explorer, a triumph that would be realized in the distance where the next wave of female foot soldiers would trek.<\/p>\n Each NWHP honoree changed perceptions of women\u2019s capabilities. She whittled out new pathways for the downtrodden. She invented. She created. She changed laws. She changed attitudes. She changed herself. She changed America.<\/p>\n Of course, all that change was not easy. Change never is.<\/p>\n Thank you to the National Women\u2019s History Project for writing women back into history.<\/em> When women\u2019s history is told on equal footing to that of men\u2019s, then we, indeed, form a more perfect union. It\u2019s a vibration of a higher order.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How National Women\u2019s History Month Began<\/strong><\/p>\n Molly Murphy MacGregor, executive director and cofounder of the National Women\u2019s History Project, was a key force in establishing March as National Women\u2019s History Month<\/a>. When MacGregor was a California high school teacher in 1972, a student asked about the women\u2019s movement. Having no answer, MacGregor was spurred to educate herself about women\u2019s history, but she was shocked to find no suitable sources.<\/p>\n In 1978, MacGregor and others on the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women created National Women\u2019s History Week for the county.<\/p>\n The week of March 8\u00a0was chosen because that date is International Women\u2019s Day. The following year, MacGregor participated in a women\u2019s history institute at Sarah Lawrence College. MacGregor shared the story of Sonoma\u2019s women\u2019s history week, and other women at the conference were inspired to create a women\u2019s history week in their own communities.<\/p>\n Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980, as National Women\u2019s History Week. In 1987, galvanized by the fact that fourteen states had already declared March as National Women\u2019s History Month, MacGregor and other women lobbied Congress to declare March, nationwide, as National Women\u2019s History Month.<\/p>\n For a full list of 2016 National Women\u2019s History Month honorees, see the NWHP website. <\/a><\/p>\n Video: \u201cDorothy Stratton & the Spars: The Legend Continues\u201d by Ed Metz https:\/\/vimeo.com\/14188229<\/a><\/p>\n The Deans\u2019 Bible<\/em> Book Trailer: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zh7Pb6RUVUk<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Stratton](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/03\/98.-Captain-Stratton-2-others-Spar-office_lores.jpg?resize=300%2C242&ssl=1\")
![\"Angie](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/03\/Angie-with-NWHP-poster.jpg?resize=261%2C300&ssl=1\")
![\"Author](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/03\/Angie-Klink-with-Molly-Murphy-MacGregor.jpg?resize=231%2C300&ssl=1\")