Link of the Week: Women' History Month--"Facts for Features" from the Census Bureau

In honor of Women's History Month, I thought I'd point out the Women History Month page from the ultimate collector of statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau. The Women's History Month page is actually part of a "Newsroom" feature of the Census called Facts for Features.

Have you ever wondered where those strange factoids and unusual bits of demographic data come from in newspaper articles and radio and television broadcasts? Well, they often come from the releases of the Census Bureau.

The one about Women's History Month includes the following facts:

$32,168: The median annual earnings of women 16 or older who worked year-round, full time, in 2005. Women earned 77 cents for every $1 earned by men. (Source: American Community Survey at <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/007419.html>)

32%: Percent of women 25 to 29 who had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2005, which exceeded that of men in this age range (25 percent). Eighty-seven percent of women and 85 percent of men in this same age range had completed high school. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/007660.html>

Nearly 6.5 million: The number of women-owned businesses in 2002, up 20 percent from 1997. (The increase was twice the national average for all businesses.) Women owned 28 percent of all non-farm businesses.

2.9 million: Number of girls who participated in high school athletic programs in the 2004-05 school year. In the 1973-74 school year, only 1.3 million girls were members of a high school athletic team. (Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, Table 1232.)

There are, of course, plenty of other Women's History Month websites out there. There's even a National Women's History Project, which is dedicated to "recognizing the achievements of women in all facets of life," in March, and throughout the year. Their Resource Center includes brief biographies and links to a variety of other pages, including some to Great Speeches and one to a history of the Women's Rights Movement.

One of our database vendors, Thomson Gale (aka InfoTrac) also has a few interesting free web resources. These include a page called Women's Rights on Trial, which reproduces overviews of 12 "key trials of historical importance to American women since the settlement of the colonies" as well as a brief Timeline of Women's History from ancient times to the present.

And don't forget to check out the Women's History Exhibit in the Library Display Case right outside our entrance during the month, too!