Women Veterans Historical Collection

October 14, 2009 10:01 PM

Jean M. Fasse (Red Cross during WWII, and later the Special Service). Shirley Ann Thacker (WAVE). Just two of the interviews from the extensive collection of material (photographs, letters, diaries, scrapbooks, oral histories and posters) at the Women Veterans Historical Collection.
posted by tellurian (4 comments total)

Cool. I have a cousin who ran a department of codebreakers for the Navy in WW2. We've been hopng to find a way to record her story. Maybe this will be it.
posted by scalefree at 10:31 PM on October 14, 2009

I've been reading Why The Allies Won - which, as you'd expect, has a lot to say about American industrial production.

Well, you know who was producing all those tanks and planes...

If American women didn't contribute as much to the Allied victory as American men, they came awfully damned close.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:48 AM on October 15, 2009

Okay, because it hasn't been mentioned (I didn't because I wanted to avoid editorialising), I feel I must after reading many of these stories say, I should have titled the post as "Lesbian WACS, racial discrimination and sexual harassment in the forces" because this is what stood out for me in these stories. Over and over.
"Don't tell" was a problem then and is still a continuing problem in the forces.
Racial discrimination still exists in the military.
Sexual harassment is a huge problem.
posted by tellurian at 7:41 AM on October 15, 2009

This is very interesting. My grandmother was an Army nurse in WWI. She met my grandfather at an Army hospital in France, and it kills me that I never heard any stories from her about her experiences. She's gone now, and her story will never be told -- so I'm very glad that there's a place where stories like hers are being collected and preserved.
posted by OolooKitty at 9:30 AM on October 15, 2009