Florence Reynolds, WASP | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

August 26, 2020

• 

  The GI Bill and Planning for the Postwar

  Well before the war ended, President Franklin D. Roosevelt envisioned a plan for veterans to return home and better their lives through the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. But administering the massive welfare program required navigating social and political challenges.

• 

  Colonel Charity Adams: 6888th Commanding Officer

  Charity Adams overcame both wartime challenges and racial discrimination to become the first Black woman officer in the Women's Army Corps and commander of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

• 

  The Women’s Army Corps (WAC)

  Despite facing resistance and discrimination, more than 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II, performing vital noncombat roles and paving the way for women's permanent inclusion in the US military.

• 

  The WAVES of the US Navy

  Despite early challenges to women’s place in the Navy, the WAVES’s establishment as a part of the Navy itself, not a corps or auxiliary like the WAACs, was “precedent-breaking.”

• 

  Julia Child Helped Develop Shark Repellant during World War II

  Julia Child is known more for her recipe for bœuf bourguignon than her time in the Office of Strategic Services. 

• 

  Lee Miller: Witness to the Concentration Camps and the Fall of the Third Reich

  One of America’s only women war correspondents reports on the liberation of the concentration camps, Soviet and American troops meeting at Torgau, and Hitler’s burning villa in Berchtesgaden

• 

  Lee Miller in Combat

  One of America’s only female war correspondents reported on the aftermath of D-Day, the Battle of Saint-Malo, and the liberation of Paris.

• 

  Lee Miller: Women at War

  One of America’s only female war correspondents captured the war through women’s service.