Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. Guest blog post by Vonda Bell, Human Resources Director, U.S. Census Bureau My name is Vonda Bell and I am thrilled to participate in the Department of Commerce’s celebration of Women’s History Month! I began my...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. Guest blog by Pam Isom, Director of the Office of Application Engineering and Development, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office As Director of the Office of Application Engineering and Development (AED), I oversee all...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. Guest blog post by Sharon Tosi Lacey, Ph.D., Chief Historian, U.S. Census Bureau “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.” –Winston Churchill As a historian, I spend much of my time buried...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. Blog post by Laurie Locascio, Acting Associate Director for Laboratory Programs, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Like a lot of scientists, I am very goal-oriented, so after I got my Ph.D. in...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. Women inventors and scientists have made lasting contributions to our nation’s history, but why is it that many people are unable to name one female inventor, but can easily recall male inventors or scientists such as...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. When Emma Hickerson started volunteering at Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary headquarters in Galveston, Texas, in 1996, it was just a "temporary thing" – or so she thought. But things didn't quite work...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. The U.S. Census Bureau has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to employing women. Ever since 1880, when it started using professional enumerators rather than U.S. marshals, the Census Office had employed...

Ed. note: This post is part of the Spotlight on Commerce series highlighting the contributions of current and past members of the Department of Commerce during Women's History Month. It's a dark cold night in the early 1830s in Nantucket, Massachusetts. On one house's widow's walk, a father and daughter, bundled against the cold, are studying the night sky, stars, and seas, armed with telescope...

The roots of National Women’s History Month go back to March 8, 1857, when women from various New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it was not until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week to be commemorated annually the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month...