With growing numbers of women in the military and their roles in the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, and Bosnia, there is increasing interest in such issues as their full integration and their role in combat. Yet women's participation in the military is not new, and these very issues have been studied in the past. This book provides the only comprehensive annotated bibliography and research guide on women in the U.S. military, from the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901 to the first deployment of women on combat ships in 1995. The opening chapter describes how to access available information on women. The following chapters cover women in the military in general; women in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard, and Marine Corps; women in nursing corps; women at service academies; and such topics as pregnancy issues, sex issues, women in combat, and women veterans. Each chapter begins with an introduction and includes archival sources as well as books, research reports, theses and dissertations, government documents, and journal entries. The book includes more than 850 entries, all with annotations. Appendices list archival sources, including military historical research centers and military museums, and organizations for military women, and a directory of military world wide web pages. The work also includes a chronology of women's service from 1901 to 1995. The book is an indispensable resource for both the beginning and the experienced researcher.

With growing numbers of women in the military and their roles in the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, and Bosnia, there is increasing interest in such issues as their full integration and their role in combat. Yet women's participation in the military is not new, and these very issues have been studied in the past. This book provides the only comprehensive annotated bibliography and research guide on women in the U.S. military, from the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901 to the first deployment of women on combat ships in 1995. The opening chapter describes how to access available information on women. The following chapters cover women in the military in general; women in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard, and Marine Corps; women in nursing corps; women at service academies; and such topics as pregnancy issues, sex issues, women in combat, and women veterans. Each chapter begins with an introduction and includes archival sources as well as books, research reports, theses and dissertations, government documents, and journal entries. The book includes more than 850 entries, all with annotations. Appendices list archival sources, including military historical research centers and military museums, and organizations for military women, and a directory of military world wide web pages. The work also includes a chronology of women's service from 1901 to 1995. The book is an indispensable resource for both the beginning and the experienced researcher.

Honorable Mention recipient for the American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award, this book outlines the rich history of more than 250 women who worked as war correspondents up through World War II, while demonstrating the ways in which the press and the military both promoted and prevented their access to war. Despite the continued presence of individual female war correspondents in news accounts, if not always in war zones, it was not until 1944 that the military recognized these individuals as a group and began formally considering sex as a factor for recruiting and accrediting war correspondents. This group identity created obstacles for women who had previously worked alongside men as “war correspondents,” while creating opportunities for many women whom the military recruited to cover woman’s angle news as “women war correspondents.” This book also reveals the ways the military and the press, as well as women themselves, constructed the concepts of “woman war correspondent” and “war correspondent” and how these concepts helped and hindered the work of all war correspondents even as they challenged and ultimately expanded the public’s understanding of war and of women.

This volume addresses the changing relationships between women and armed forces from antiquity to the present: eight chapters review the existing literature, an extended picture essay visually documents women’s military work, and eight chapters illustrate more restricted topics.

One of the negative consequences of the 1978 integration of the various women's auxiliaries into the mainstream of the U.S. military was a loss of institutional memory. The Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation was established, in part, to preserve a thread of history by documenting and celebrating the rich and varied experiences of women in the U.S. military. From 1942 to 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Betty Bandel (retired) served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC, the Women's Army Corps), eventually heading the WAC Division of the Army Air Force. During these years she wrote hundreds of letters to family and friends tracing her growth from an enthusiastic recruit, agog in the presence of public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt (code named Rover), to a seasoned officer and leader. Bandel was one of the Corps' most influential senior officers. Her letters are rich with detail about the WAC's contribution to the war effort and the inner workings of the first large, non-nurse contingent of American military women. In addition, her letters offer a revealing look at the wartime emergence of professional women. Perhaps for the first time, women oversaw and directed hundreds of thousands of personnel, acquired professional and personal experiences, and built networks that would guide and influence them well past their war years. Thus, Betty Bandel's story is not only an intimate account of one woman's military experience during World War II but part of the larger story of women's history and progress.

Women have been actively involved the United States military for more than fifty years, but the ban on their participation in combat remains a hotly debated issue. In this provocative book Lorry M. Fenner, an active-duty Air Force intelligence officer, calls for opening all aspects of military service to women. Marie deYoung, a former Army chaplain, argues that keeping women out of combat is in the best interests of both sexes and crucial to the effectiveness of the military as a whole. Fenner bases her argument for inclusion of women on the idea that democracies require all citizens to compete in public endeavor and share in civic obligation. She contends that, historically, reasons for banning women from combat have been culturally biased. She argues that membership in a combat force should be based on capability judged against appropriate standards. Moreover, she maintains that excluding women hampers the diversity and adaptability that by necessity will characterize the armed forces in the twenty-first century. In contrast, deYoung declares that the different physical fitness standards for men and women would, in combat, lower morale for both sexes and put women at risk of casualty. Further, she contends that women have neither the physical or emotional strength to endure the overall brutality of the combat experience. She also asserts that calls for lifting the combat ban are politically motivated and are inconsistent with the principles of American democracy and the mission of national defense. With each author responding to the views of the other, their exchange offers a valuable synthesis of the issues surrounding a longstanding debate among policymakers, military personnel, and scholars of both military history and women’s studies.

With more than 60 essays, A Companion to American MilitaryHistory presents a comprehensive analysis of the historiographyof United States military history from the colonial era to thepresent. Covers the entire spectrum of US history from the Indian andimperial conflicts of the seventeenth century to the battles inAfghanistan and Iraq Features an unprecedented breadth of coverage from eminentmilitary historians and emerging scholars, including little studiedtopics such as the military and music, military ethics, care of thedead, and sports Surveys and evaluates the best scholarship on every importantera and topic Summarizes current debates and identifies areas whereconflicting interpretations are in need of further study

This work includes 1000 entries covering the spectrum of defining women in the contemporary world.

American Women during World War II documents the lives and stories of women who contributed directly to the war effort via official and semi-official military organizations, as well as the millions of women who worked in civilian defense industries, ranging from aircraft maintenance to munitions manufacturing and much more. It also illuminates how the war changed the lives of women in more traditional home front roles. All women had to cope with rationing of basic household goods, and most women volunteered in war-related programs. Other entries discuss institutional change, as the war affected every aspect of life, including as schools, hospitals, and even religion. American Women during World War II provides a handy one-volume collection of information and images suitable for any public or professional library.