- Summary
- Our Mothers' War is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. Never before has the vast range of American women's experience during this pivotal era been brought together in one book. Now, Our Mothers' War re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad. Like all great histories, Our Mothers' War began with an illuminating discovery. After finding a journal and letters her mother had written while serving with the Red Cross in the Pacific, journalist Emily Yellin started unearthing what her mother and other women of her mother's generation went through during a time when their country asked them to step into roles they had never been invited, or allowed, to fill before. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including personal interviews and previously unpublished letters and diaries, Yellin shows what went on in the hearts and minds of the real women behind the female images of World War II -- women working in war plants; mothers and wives sending their husbands and sons off to war and sometimes death; women joining the military for the first time in American history; nurses operating in battle zones in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific; and housewives coping with rationing. Yellin also delves into lesser-known stories, including: tales of female spies, pilots, movie stars, baseball players, politicians, prostitutes, journalists, and even fictional characters; firsthand accounts from the wives of the scientists who created the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, African-American women who faced Jim Crow segregation laws at home even as their men were fighting enemy bigotry and injustice abroad, and Japanese-American women locked up as prisoners in their own country. Yellin explains how Wonder Woman was created in 1941 to fight the Nazi menace and became the first female comic book superhero, as well as how Marilyn Monroe was discovered in 1944 while working with her mother-in-law packing parachutes at a war plant in Burbank, California. Our Mothers' War gives center stage to those who might be called "the other American soldiers." A tribute to the contributions of women during World War II examines how the war transformed traditional women's roles, drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews to describe the experiences of nurses, factory employees, the military's first women soldiers, female prisoners of war, and others.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Yellin, Emily, 1961-
- Published
- New York : Free Press, ©2004
- Locale
- United States
USA
- Contents
-
Prologue : For Carol Lynn : unearthing our mothers' war years
To bring him home safely : wives, mothers, and sisters of servicemen
Soldiers without guns : female defense industry workers
Putting up a good front : female entertainers, fictional characters, and icons
This man's army : WACs
On duty at home : WAVES, SPARs, marines, and WASPs
Save his life and find your own : volunteers, Land Army, Red Cross Girls, and nurses
Jane Crow : African-American women
Behind enemy lines : spies, propaganda workers, and those who worked for the enemy
A question of loyalty : Japanese-American women
Qualified successes : politicians, journalists, doctors, baseball players, and other professional women
The "wrong kind" of woman : prostitutes, unwed mothers, and lesbians
A war within the war : right-wing, anti-Semitic mothers' groups and Jewish-American women
Inside the secret city : wives and WACs in Los Alamos
Epilogue : Their legacy : our mothers' war years resounding through our lives
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
Permission credits.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-428) and index.
Prologue : For Carol Lynn : unearthing our mothers' war years -- To bring him home safely : wives, mothers, and sisters of servicemen -- Soldiers without guns : female defense industry workers -- Putting up a good front : female entertainers, fictional characters, and icons -- This man's army : WACs -- On duty at home : WAVES, SPARs, marines, and WASPs -- Save his life and find your own : volunteers, Land Army, Red Cross Girls, and nurses -- Jane Crow : African-American women -- Behind enemy lines : spies, propaganda workers, and those who worked for the enemy -- A question of loyalty : Japanese-American women -- Qualified successes : politicians, journalists, doctors, baseball players, and other professional women -- The "wrong kind" of woman : prostitutes, unwed mothers, and lesbians -- A war within the war : right-wing, anti-Semitic mothers' groups and Jewish-American women -- Inside the secret city : wives and WACs in Los Alamos -- Epilogue : Their legacy : our mothers' war years resounding through our lives -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- Permission credits.
