Let’s talk about the Gutsy Women of World War II! I’m back with resources, lecture notes, reading annotations, and all the other materials you need to build your own class about the role of women in WWII. — MT Hallock Morris
Video: It’s Your War, Too! Produced by the US Army Signal Corps and distributed under the auspices of The War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry. Available on YouTube courtesy of The Best Film Archives.
The Gutsy Women of World War II
During the 2022 Spring Semester, I taught a nifty Honors Seminar entitled The Gutsy Women of World War II. This class was an outgrowth of the research I had conducted for a talk at the Albert H. Small Normandy Institute. [You can read the backstory here!] Although I am an associate professor of Political Science, I am a huge proponent of interdisciplinary research. Why stay in our individual academic silos when there is so much to learn out there? My research has since expanded to include other gutsy women – suffragettes, female politicians, and environmental activists. All of these women have a story, with a common theme: Grit. More specifically, they persisted when the odds were against them.
What you are seeing here is a hodgepodge of ideas. You’ll see links to the sources I used to develop my course, annotations and summaries of readings about gutsy women, and my thoughts as they have continued to develop. My goal is to share what I found, to help support others as they delve into teaching the stories of these women.
The Seminar: A Basic Description
If you’re a high school teacher, a college professor, a homeschooling parent, a student looking for information to write a paper, well, you probably want to know what I taught in this course. Here are a few excerpts from my course syllabus:
The Course Description
Land Girls, Leaders, Soldiers, Spies: The Gutsy Women of World War II. What did you do during the war, Grandma? From simple things such as rationing and planting victory gardens to serving as WACs and Marines, from being a nurse on the beach at Normandy to serving donuts behind enemy lines, from working as a “Rosie” to spying behind enemy lines, women played an essential role in helping the Allies win the war. Our focus will be on issues of gender, intersectionality, and leadership, as well as the “Grit and Guts” it took to survive the darker aspects of war – surviving the Holocaust, hiding Jewish children in convents, and flying night raids over the enemy. As a part of our work, you will learn how to use USI’s archival resources to help build a popular history podcast on the Gutsy Women of World War II.
Note: This course was offered as a 1-hour honors seminar at the 100-level. The course met in person one day a week for 50 minutes. We had two weeks where the meeting was online (I was at a conference one week, I was out with COVID symptoms the second time). We also had one day that was cancelled due to inclement weather. We had a speaker during one class session who talked about the practicalities of developing a podcast and/or radio documentary. We also had one class period where we toured the University’s archives and special collections.
Honors Program Student Learning Outcomes
Connections among Disciplines. Students will demonstrate an understanding of interdisciplinary inquiry into complex problems.
Research and Creative Skills. Students will demonstrate the skills necessary to do independent research or creative projects and present their work to faculty and peers.
Community Engagement. Students will demonstrate leadership and active membership in various communities, including the Honors Program, USI, and the Evansville community.
Ethics and Morals of Citizenship. Students will demonstrate an understanding of the ethical and moral obligations of being an informed and engaged citizen in a diverse and global community.
Course Learning Objectives
Students will demonstrate understanding of the role of women in World War II from the perspectives of political science, history, and women’s studies.
Students will demonstrate strengthened skills important to success in Honors and undergraduate education, including reading skills, critical and creative thinking skills, and communication skills (written and oral) by using both primary and secondary materials to develop script materials for popular history podcast.
Students will demonstrate understanding of the impact of the topic on current global issues by examining the historical issues of intersectionality and exploring the roots of modern societal expectations of women.
The Textbook & Other Materials
Note: This is an older book and it didn’t cover all of the topics I wanted to cover in the class. I augmented the book with various articles and videos that I linked through our course website. Furthermore, because one of the goals of the class was to look at Evansville’s (IN) contributions to the war effort, I also had two public history books on reserve at the campus library. These were:
MacLeod, James Lachlan. 2015. Evansville in World War II. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Bingham, Darrel. 2005. Evansville: The World War II Years. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
Our Weekly Topics
Week 1. Precursors
Week 2. Unearthing Our Mothers’ War Years
Week 3. Soldiers Without Guns – The Rosies
Week 4. Putting Up a Good Front – Entertainers, Fictional Characters, & Icons
Week 5. This Man’s Army, Part I – WAC, WAVES, SPARS, WASPS, and Marines
Week 6. Save His Life and Find Your Own – Volunteers, Land Army, Red Cross Girls, and Nurses
Week 7. Jane Crow and Questions of Loyalty – African American and Japanese American Women
Week 8. More on Intersectionality – Mexican American Women War Workers
Week 9. British Women on the Homefront – Victory Gardens, Jambusters, and Make Do and Mend
Week 10. British Spies, American Spies
Week 11. France, Belgium, and the Philippines – Resistance Efforts and Freedom Lines
Week 12. The USSR – Night Witches and Snipers
Week 13. Bad Girls – Red Light Districts, Social Mores, and Sexuality
Week 14. Victims and Survival – Comfort Women, Rape, and the Holocaust
Week 15. The Aftermath – Backlash, the Roots of Feminism, and Iconic Visions
Note: I issued a trigger warning for Week 14 because these can be uncomfortable topics. Here is what I stated:
This discussion may be uncomfortable for some students. Descriptions of the rape of Nanking, the forced prostitution of Korean women, and the treatment of women in concentration camps may be graphic. Please see me if you need an accommodation for this week.”
— HONS 129.H04 Syllabus | Spring 2022, University of Southern Indiana
About Week 13: I’m a college professor and my class was filled with individuals who were 18+. I’m also pretty open when it comes to talking about sex because I feel that honesty is the best policy. However, I am also married to a high school social studies teacher — and he has adamantly stated that he would never cover these topics in class. I suspect that your comfort level with these issues depends on where you live and teach in the USA.
So What’s Next?
Stay tuned. We’re going to start our journey with the tale of a countess and a housewife, followed by a short story about the 6888th Postal Battalion. Next week, you’ll be introduced to the women warriors of years past and to the Hello Girls. If you’ve been here before, these are reposts from last fall. All new material starts next Wednesday!
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Grit, Guts, and Glass Ceilings 