Archives
- Women Come to the FrontThe women featured in this exhibit were chosen because of the strength and variety of their collections in the Library of Congress. Like their colleagues, the women followed various paths to their wartime assignments.
- Women Workers in WartimePersonnel Records Offer Valuable Insight into Civilian Employees’ Lives.
Internet Resources
- Women and warWomen have played many roles in warfare over the centuries, from keeping the home fires burning (and kingdoms running) in ancient times, to supporting the military with domestic work in the early 18th Century, and in taking up nursing positions near the frontlines of the Crimean and the trenches of Europe.
- Women and WarMen make war; women live with the consequences. At least that is the way it is largely perceived.
- Women at war: why do we still struggle with the idea of female soldiers?Female warriors serve at the margins of history – or are press-ganged to the frontlines of controversy, writes novelist Sarah Hall.
- Forgotten history: The role of women in war timesThe word “soldier” may bring to mind a man in uniform but it actually refers to anyone serving in the military, including women.
Streaming Media
- No Job for a Woman: Pioneering Women Reporters in WWIIThis award-winning documentary tells the colorful story of how three tenacious female war correspondents forged their now legendary reputations during World War II —when battlefields were considered no place for a woman.
- Women in Combat, In Their Own WordsLong before the Pentagon's announcement, women were already embedded in the front lines of Afghanistan. All-female Cultural Support Teams (CSTs) served a unique purpose to engage with women and children on the ground, and to gather valuable intelligence—but these women soldiers were also in the thick of combat situations. What can we learn from their experiences? The Atlantic interviewed some of these women and gathered their thoughts on parity within the military, the unique qualifications of female soldiers, and what they would say to dissenters to the decision to allow women in combat roles.
- Women in War: Part 1Focusing on war-torn areas of the world, this inspiring program profiles women living with the day-to-day tragedy of war. Part I begins in Israel and moves to Northern Ireland where we meet Nobel Peace Prize winner Meiread Corrigan who formed Peace People. Part II is dedicated to the women of Salvador, working for the popular front movements for a more just society, and moves to the U.S. where women are fighting to reclaim their neighborhoods from crime.
- Women in War: Part 2Part II is dedicated to the women of the Americas. It begins in El Salvador, a country where torture and terrorism are part of every family's history. Salvadorean women are assuming leadership positions in the popular front movements for a more just society. In Boston, New York, Washington and Los Angeles, we meet women who are leading the fight to reclaim their neighborhoods from crime.
Perspectives
Warrior Women: 3000 Years of Courage and Heroism
Amazons -- Deborah -- Sammu-Ramat -- Artemisia -- Telesilla -- Cleopatra VII -- Boudicca -- Cartimandua -- The Tru'ung sisters -- Zenobia -- Brunhilde -- Women fighters of the Arab world -- Wu Chao -- Aethelflaed -- Matilda of Tuscany -- Eleanor of Aquitaine -- Tamara -- Isabella of France -- Isabel of Fife -- Joan of Arc -- Margaret of Anjou -- Isabella I of Spain -- Caterina Sforza -- Malinalli Tenepal -- Chiyome -- Grace O'Malley -- Elizabeth I -- Jinga Mbandi -- Catalina de Erauso -- Lady Mary Bankes -- Warrior women of Dahomey -- Hannah Snell -- Catherine II -- Molly Pitcher -- Deborah Sampson -- Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt -- Nadezhda Durova -- Cheng I Sao -- 'La Saragossa' -- Rani Lakshmibai -- Tz'u-Hsi -- Elisa Lynch -- Harriet Ross Tubman -- Anna Etheridge -- Louise Michel -- Soldaderas -- Flora Sandes -- Mariya Bochkareva -- Marthe Richard -- Dorothy Lawrence -- Constance Markiewicz -- Sabiha Gökçen -- Women of the Long March -- Dolores Ibárruri Gomes -- Lilya Litvak -- Red Army women soldiers -- Britain's mixed anti-aircraft batteries -- Women of the Warsaw ghetto uprising -- Vera Atkins -- Pearl Witherington -- Christine Granville -- Andrée de Jongh -- Virginia Hall -- Maria Gulovich -- Hanna Reitsch -- Ruth Werner -- Olga Chekhova -- Susan Travers -- Jacqueline Cochran -- Lillian Kinkela Keil -- Haydée Santamaria -- Golda Meir -- Jeanne Holm -- Margaret Thatcher -- Women in the US military since 1941 -- Martha McSally -- 'Tammy' Duckworth.
The Second Line of Defense
In tracing the rise of the modern idea of the American "new woman," Lynn Dumenil examines World War I's surprising impact on women and, in turn, women's impact on the war. Telling the stories of a diverse group of women, including African Americans, dissidents, pacifists, reformers, and industrial workers, Dumenil analyzes both the roadblocks and opportunities they faced. She richly explores the ways in which women helped the United States mobilize for the largest military endeavor in the nation's history. Dumenil shows how women activists staked their claim to loyal citizenship by framing their war work as homefront volunteers, overseas nurses, factory laborers, and support personnel as "the second line of defense." But in assessing the impact of these contributions on traditional gender roles, Dumenil finds that portrayals of these new modern women did not always match with real and enduring change. Extensively researched and drawing upon popular culture sources as well as archival material, The Second Line of Defense offers a comprehensive study of American women and war and frames them in the broader context of the social, cultural, and political history of the era.
Fly Girls
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER "Exhilarating." --New York Times Book Review "Riveting." --People "Keith O'Brien has brought these women--mostly long-hidden and forgotten--back into the light where they belong. And he's done it with grace, sensitivity and a cinematic eye for detail that makes Fly Girls both exhilarating and heartbreaking." --USA Today The untold story of five women who fought to compete against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s -- and won Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi‑day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn in on a manly, and deadly, pursuit. Fly Girls recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky. O'Brien weaves together the stories of five remarkable women: Florence Klingensmith, a high‑school dropout who worked for a dry cleaner in Fargo, North Dakota; Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcee; Amelia Earhart, the most famous, but not necessarily the most skilled; Ruth Nichols, who chafed at the constraints of her blue‑blood family's expectations; and Louise Thaden, the mother of two young kids who got her start selling coal in Wichita. Together, they fought for the chance to race against the men -- and in 1936 one of them would triumph in the toughest race of all. Like Hidden Figures and Girls of Atomic City, Fly Girls celebrates a little-known slice of history in which tenacious, trail-blazing women braved all obstacles to achieve greatness.
Women and War
War is overwhelmingly a male occupation. Yet its victims are often civilians -- many among them women and children. In Women and War Jenny Matthews gives a voice to this silent majority of casualties through a series of deeply moving -- sometimes disturbing -- photographs of human subjects in the midst of war and conflict wherever they are found. Twenty years of visual and written diaries tell of human struggle around the world -- in Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Burma, Chechnya, Haiti, the United Kingdom, Guatemala, and Sudan, among others. Jenny Matthews documents women and the roles they play -- avoiding, coping, confronting, participating -- as well as the emotions they experience: anger, fear, despair, joy, hope, terror. Jenny Matthews records the stories of the people she photographs, both visually and with written diaries that underscore the immediacy of the images, drawing connections between the different countries. Above all her book is a celebration of the lives of women, and how their role as actual or potential mothers changes their relationship to war. Jenny Matthews, freelance photographer and filmmaker, chronicles the devastating effects of armed conflict on women. Her work has been exhibited by Oxfam and Womankind Worldwide, and has appeared in magazines such as Mother Jones.
Images of Women in peace and War
Drawing the lines -- gender, peace, and war / Sharon Macdonald -- Images of Amazons / Ilse Kirk -- Boadicea / Sharon Macdonald -- Women and ritual conflict in Inka society / Penny Dransart -- Kikuyu women and the politics of protest / Tabitha Kanogo -- Women soldiers and white unity in apartheid South Africa / Elaine Unterhalter -- Living with images of a fighting elite / Rosemary McKechnie -- Women and the pacification of men in New Guinea / Jessica Mayer -- Passive in war? / Margaret Brooks -- Perceptions of 'Peace women' at Greenham Common 1981-5 / Lynne Jones -- 'Did your mother wear army boots?' / Ruth Roach Pierson.
Outrageous Women of Civil War Times
Fascinating true stories of the most amazing women in American history They were pioneers and trailblazers, spies and ex-slaves, reformers and first ladies. They became America's first women nurses, doctors, preachers, and voters. These Outrageous Women of Civil War Times braved the battlefield, fought for their rights, wrote inspiring works-and became heroines! Among the outrageous women you'll meet are: Belle Boyd-a spy for the confederacy who dodged a hail of bullets to deliver key information to General Stonewall Jackson Susan B. Anthony-the pioneering women's rights crusader who broke the law in order to vote for Ulysses S. Grant for president Clara Barton-who cared for Civil War soldiers on the battlefield and founded the American Red Cross Harriet Tubman-the runaway slave who led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad
D-Day Girls
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The dramatic, untold history of the heroic women recruited by Britain's elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II "Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)--and all of it true."--Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To "set Europe ablaze," in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There's Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE's unflappable "queen." Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence--laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage--and the energy of politically animated women--can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high. Praise for D-Day Girls "Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book."--Refinery29 "Equal parts espionage-romance thriller and historical narrative, D-Day Girls traces the lives and secret activities of the 39 women who answered the call to infiltrate France. . . . While chronicling the James Bond-worthy missions and love affairs of these women, Rose vividly captures the broken landscape of war."--The Washington Post "Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)