The Commons provides a wealth of photos of the half of the world being celebrated today, International Women’s Day — every one of them uncommon and important in her own way.

Wilhelmina Drucker, women’s rights pioneer, is portrayed by Truus Claes on the occasion of her seventieth birthday (1917).

Nationaal Archief

Gwyneth Richards, the only girl in the YFC taking part in sheep shearing competitions in Wales (1944).

National Library of Wales

Eileen Power, Professor of Economic History from 1931 to 1940, London School of Economics (1930s).

LSE Library

Co-eds with hoes: The county experimental hop yard recruited Oregon State College coeds for a quick job of hoeing (1944).

Oregon State University Archives

An unnamed 14-year-old striker, actress and political activist Fola La Follette, and prostitute-turned reformer Rose Livingston (1913).

Library of Congress

Rita Trudget (or Trudgett), wicket keeper, in Moore Park, Sydney, Australia (1930s).

State Library of New South Wales

Field Museum Library

U.S. National Archives

U.S. National Archives

New York Public Library

Happy International Women’s Day!

The Commons celebrates this day by paying tribute to the women of the world with an extravaganza of new uploads. See new sets from the George Eastman House, the Nationaal Archief, Oregon State University Archives and the Powerhouse Museum devoted to International Women’s Day!

The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution are jointly honoring Women’s History Month by holding special exhibitions and events:

See all the wonderful women of history in The Commons by searching on the tag “womensday”:

Women across the Commons

Give flowers to a woman in your life today!

International Women’s Day is celebrated across the globe annually on March 8. We honor this day with a pair of photos demonstrating the power that women have achieved in the past 100 years.

Library of Congress	James Gordon
THEN	NOW

Taken circa 1910, this portrait of Elisabeth Freeman at a suffragette rally shows the tenacity of women struggling to attain voting rights. Freeman braved arrest and a brutal wintertime march, the Suffrage Hike, from New York City to President Wilson’s White House, in protest of the inability of women to vote.

Fast forward to 2005, where we witness an Iraqi woman having her finger inked after casting a vote at a polling station in Mosul, Iraq. The photographer, James Gordon (jamesdale10 on Flickr), was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as the Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division (Baghdad) public affairs photographer, where he documented Corps reconstruction and new construction activities in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, including this historic vote.

Hind Fadhil, a young woman, called an American-run talk show, ”Your Voice,” from the Arab neighborhood of Islah Zirai, which residents of Mosul refer to as an insurgent stronghold, to explain why some on the west bank went to the polls despite the danger.

”We didn’t care,” she said. ”We just wanted to vote.” —New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005

See more photos from various Commons’ institutions that celebrate this great day of women.

International Women’s Day is celebrated annually in March. The women’s suffrage movement changed so much for so many women. Across the Commons, we see the advances women have made in the last century . . .

Hedwig Reicher, a German actress, poses as Columbia, a poetic name for the United States and a symbolic personification of the feminine. See all the Commons suffrage photos here.

Library of Congress

Thanks to the political achievements of the women of the 1910s, woman are . . .

Athletes . . . Women’s athletics and gymnastics debuted at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.

Nationaal Archief

Scientists! Maria Skłodowska-Curie in 1934: the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different science fields.

Smithsonian Institution

Aviators . . . Nancy Bird Walton became the youngest Australian woman to gain a pilot’s license. See another famous aviatrix, Amy Johnson.

State Library of New South Wales

Actresses . . . The best-known actress of the golden age of Portuguese cinema was Beatriz Costa. There are many actresses represented in the Commons.

Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Politicians themselves! First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, 1943, with General MacArthur’s wife, Jean Marie MacArthur, on an Australian tour.

State Library of Queensland, Australia

Rosie the Riveter! During World War II, women worked in manufacturing plants as men went off to fight war.

Library of Congress

Happy International Women’s Day! Honor the women in your life on the 8th. Find more photographs of women in the Commons.