MetaFilter posts tagged with wwii and women

Go, Gibson guitar gals!

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 01:45:25 -0800

As American men went off to war during World War II, women stepped in to fill the jobs they left behind, keeping the factories and shipyards running, and the economy humming. While most were praised for their patriotism, one unheralded group of women worked in the shadows building Gibson guitars. The maker of the famous instrument never confirmed that women crafted its guitars during the war, and in an official company history, even reported it stopped producing instruments for those years. But now the time has come to shed some new historical light on the Kalamazoo Gals. Though I couldn't find any audio samples on the web from the CD by Lauren Sheehan that features her performing on twelve different Gibson "Banner" guitars (the album's official release date was just two days ago), there are various YT clips and audio samples at her website.

1930s-40s in Colour

gman — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:12:55 -0800

The Library of Congress has posted a series of colour photos from the 1930s and 1940s online. The link I chose starts at page 13 and continues on page 14. It focuses on women in factories, with some others mixed in, but the entire series is quite impressive.

Rediscovering WWII's female "computers"

Errant — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:55:19 -0800

Rediscovering WWII's female "computers". While researching a documentary in Philadelphia, filmmaker LeAnn Erickson came across two women with a story she'd never heard before: thousands of women with advanced mathematical skills employed as "computers", working day and night during WWII to supply soldiers in the field with precise ballistics algorithms. Some of those women also went on to program ENIAC, the first general-purpose computer (previously). Erickson turned their stories into Top Secret Rosies, a documentary released to theaters last year and to DVD this month. One of those programmers, Betty Jean Jennings Bartik, spoke at length to the Computing History Museum in 2008. [youtube, 1:07:19] [via]

House of Sharing

ignignokt — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:34:36 -0800

The House of Sharing is a place for the Halmoni to to live together and heal the wounds of the past while educating the future generations of the suffering they survived.

The View From Over Here details her visit to the House of Sharing, a therapeutic group home and museum for surviving "comfort women", who were systematically raped by the Japanese military during World War II. The museum displays art for and by the survivors. Via Ask a Korean. The women, who were 80-90% Korean, were given Japanese names, usually flower names, and each woman's name was placed on a wooden placard on the wall which is quite similar to menus in a Japanese restaurant. Many people, even Koreans, refused to believe, but her courage has allowed 220 more Halmoni to come forward and declare themselves as former sex slaves to the Japanese. Many others, though, remain in silence, either not wanting to relive memories of the past, or discouraged by families who feel ashamed to have this scar on their family's history. Although Japanese scholars now openly acknowledge the atrocities committed against the women, the government remains more ambiguous.

A tribute to fallen heros

caddis — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:17:17 -0800

“Let us acknowledge the measure of their sacrifice by honoring them as brave women, and by honoring them as women who served without thought of glory which we accord to heroes of battle. The service pilot faces the risk of death without the emotional inspiration of combat. Men who battle in the sky have the grim, triumphant knowledge that their bombs and bullets are destroying the enemy, and their courage is sustained by the emotions of conflict. These women have given their lives in the performance of arduous and exacting duties without being able to see and feel the final results of their work under the quickening influence of aerial action. They have demonstrated a courage which is sustained not by the fevers of combat, but the steady heartbeat of faith—a faith in the rightness of our cause, and a faith in the importance of their work to the men who do go into combat. Let us pay tribute to these women by honoring their memory . . . Let us treasure their memory as women whose sacrifice has brought honor not only to their country, but also to their organization. We shall not forget the accomplishments of our women fliers and their contributions to the fulfillment of our mission. And we shall always keep and remember the brave heritage of the women who gave their lives. It is the heritage of faith in victory and faith in the ultimate freedom of humanity.” Women Airforce Service Pilots flew missions in WWII, yet were never official military, their existence was kept secret for decades and they received no military benefits. Recently they were awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Some more information is available at the museum.

The Women of ENIAC

Asparagirl — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:22:51 -0800

It's hardly the case today (unless you live in Iran), but once upon a time, all computer programmers were female. While the (male) engineers who built ENIAC, the world's first modern computer, became famous and lauded, the six women who actually programmed ENIAC have been largely overlooked. Now a team of researchers and programmers is trying to raise money to tell the story of these pioneering women in a new documentary, before it's too late. So, here's to the women of ENIAC: Frances Elizabeth "Betty" Snyder Holberton Betty Jean Jennings Bartik Kathleen "Kay" McNulty Mauchly Antonelli Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum Frances "Fran" Bilas Spence *raises a ~~glass~~ cup of coffee*

Comfort Women

zarq — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:18:00 -0800

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations adopted a bipartisan resolution to ask the Japanese government to formally apologize for sexually enslaving up to 200,000 "comfort women" in Imperial brothels during its colonial occupation of Asia from 1932 through the end of World War II. Many were tortured and raped, and only about 30% survived WWII. Japan has stated repeatedly that even though the brothels were established by military policy, the imperial government was not directly involved in operating them. Taking responsibility would be an admission that they committed war crimes -- slavery and trafficking in women and children -- and could give victims a legal basis to sue for reparations.

H Res. 759 does not ask Japan to provide reparations, but it does push them to unambiguously acknowledge what happened and educate future generations, (full text) rather than continue the current practice of denying what really happened. Previously on MeFi.

Lee Miller: The Real Surrealist

matteo — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:40:30 -0800

From muse to master Lee Miller started out as a Vogue model, but by 1930 she had moved behind the lens to take piercing photographs -- culminating in her rage-fuelled portraits of Nazi kitsch. The "Lee Miller: Portraits" exhibit is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from February 3 until May 30. More inside.