Women's History

Haruko Takahashi was a Shintō priestess who spent part of World War II imprisoned at Honouliuli Internment Camp on O’ahu, Hawai’i. She died on December 24, 1972, and her life is still celebrated every year in a memorial service at the Konko Mission.

The hostilities of World War II did not end all at once. In the United States, they also took place against the somber backdrop of President Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945. A few short days later, on May 8, President Truman announced the unconditional surrender of Germany. Celebrations of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day spilled into the streets across the country and around the world. But the celebrations were tinged with the awareness that the war in the Pacific continued.

Congress created the United States Coast Guard Women’s Reserve during World War II. It was more commonly known as the SPARS, an acronym for the Coast Guard motto “Semper Paratus—Always Ready.”

Food rationing affected every American every day on the World War II home front. Several factors influenced rationing, including supply and demand issues, military needs, and the economy.

Explore the life of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani and her tireless advocacy for Hawaiian sovereignty from Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Born in 1861 at Lihue, Kauai in the Kingdom of Hawaii, Wilhelmina Kekelaokalaninui Widemann was the daughter of Mary Kaumana Pilahiulani, a Native Hawaiian, and German immigrant Hermann A. Widemann. Part of the Royal Hawaiian family, her father was a cabinet minister for Queen Lili’uokalani. In 1912, Dowsett founded the National Women’s Equal Suffrage Association of Hawai’i (WESAH), the first Hawaiian suffrage organization.

Women of the West were the first in the United States to enjoy full voting rights. As new territories and states organized, many considered, and most granted, women the right to vote. Decades before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, western women voted and served in public office. In the diverse West, woman suffragists campaigned across mountains, plains, and deserts, finding common cause with a variety of communities and other political movements.

Patsy Matsu Takemoto was born in Pā‘ia, Hawai‘i Territory on the island of Maui on December 6, 1927. Her parents, Suematsu and Mitama Takemoto, were second-generation Japanese immigrants. Hawai‘i became a U.S. territory in 1900 but was not admitted as a state until 1959. She was the first woman of color and first Asian American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1883, Mother Marianne Cope arrived in Hawaii with six other Sisters of St. Francis to care for patients with leprosy on the Hawaiian Islands. With the arrival of patients and caregivers on the isolated peninsula, the Kalawao and Kalaupapa Settlements developed into a settlement community with facilities for religion, medical care, recreation, and agriculture. In addition to her lifetime of service, Mother Marianne played a critical role in the landscape's development.

Activity: Design your own 19th Amendment Ratification Star.