Grandeur times still here Published March 3, 2009 By 2nd Lt. Kidron B. Vestal Deputy Chief, Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. -- [Editor's note: Women's History Month officially started in March 2000 by order of President Clinton when he signed a presidential proclamation highlighting women of the past and future. The following article discusses the accomplishments of some of our nation's greatest champions for women's rights.] Sacajawea, Willa Cather and Lucille Ball. They were born in different centuries, but each influenced the landscape of our times. Whether through American Indian sagas, literary means (Cather's "My Ántonia"), or comedy in the '50s, our nation learned to understand, sense, and laugh at levels of which women were notably (and Pulitzer-ly) responsible. But it was a long road. Beginning in the late 1800s, women started to experience the hope of gender equality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony stood on the forefront of female promise, and dared the circumstances that otherwise would be their fate. Stanton and Anthony established the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, but their work would continue. Together, they laid the foundation for women's right to vote, which came in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Susan B. Anthony said, "The day will come when men will recognize women as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation."