Women's History Commons^™

Survivor Accounts Of Sexual Violence In The Holocaust And Rwandan Genocide: A Comparative History, Marisa Silva

Honors Projects

This research seeks to analyze and understand the approach and treatment of victims of sexual assaults stories and accounts using case studies of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Research was conducted by collecting and reading first-hand accounts of survivors and their experiences of sexual assault, then analyzing the historical response following the events. The two case studies are synthesized and compared in this project to understand which attributes of political and social policy effected the reception of stories of victims and witnesses of rape and assault. Both genocides are affected by unique struggles in collecting witness accounts, as well …

The Railsplitter And The Pathfinder: The Relationship Between Abraham Lincoln And John C. Frémont, Kourtney Yantis

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This study serves as an analysis of the connections between Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and John Charles Frémont as a Civil War general. Lincoln’s position within history is solid, unlike that of John C. Frémont. The thesis will elevate Frémont to a higher status as a historical figure by arguing that the emancipation edict that he issued for Missouri in August of 1861 would influence Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary emancipation proclamation of September 1862, even though Lincoln repealed Frémont’s decree. In biographies of each man, their interactions are merely a small part of the stories of their …

The Gray Area: Sexuality And Gender In Wartime Reevaluated, Natalie Pendergraft

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

These three works, two academic papers and one screenplay, challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality during wartime. Queer Vietnam service members did not all experience oppression, all the time, but rather carved out a space for themselves amongst their peers. Female nurses in the early cold war could keep their careers in the medical field due to its unique gendered history despite demobilization efforts across the country in different industries. Finally, through the medium of historical fiction, a Civil War soldier’s fears and desires are questioned as he experiences the phenomenon of the Angel’s Glow, a blue light that …

An Exhibition Of Women's United States Air Force Uniforms, Michelle Robinson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The new Women in the Air Force exhibit under development at the Hill Aerospace Museum, located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is long overdue. The exhibit is set to replace the existing display in order to more accurately and comprehensively represent women’s continuing legacy of service to our nation. The uniforms in the Hill Aerospace Museum collection constitute the focal point of the new exhibit. Material culture methodologies form the foundation of this exhibit work; seeking to provide greater understanding of women’s military experience and history through the analysis of their uniforms. This approach therefore utilizes uniforms, the museum’s …

Wives, Warriors, And Womanhood: A Study Of Women’S War Roles, Megan Lee

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Since starting the War, Diplomacy, and Society program, my interests have included a focus on the soldier’s experience in war, women’s changing roles in war, and the study of war journalism, ranging from World War II, the Cold War, to the Vietnam War. This thesis project is a culmination of these themes.

The first article examines the crucial nature of a soldier’s connection to the Home Front by analyzing a collection of letters between a soldier and his fiancé during World War II. Filled with declarations of love and occasional expressions of insecurity, these letters reveal the importance of a …

Colonial Markets, Consumers, And Trade: A Comparative Analysis Of Historic Ceramics From The Bluefields Bay Area, Westmoreland, Jamaica, Lacy Risner

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The ceramic assemblages from a British colonial settlement in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica, provide a unique window into the market availability, exchange routes, and consumption patterns of the eighteenth century. This study compares the historic ceramics collected from two sites in Bluefields Bay to one another and to other intra-island (Jamaica), intraregional (Lesser Antilles), and international (North America) colonial and postcolonial sites to reveal patterns of individual and global ceramic consumption and distribution in the emergent capitalist networks and markets of the colonial era. Integrating small British colonial sites into the networks of other more extensive studies focusing primarily on plantations …

Sacrificing Sisters: Nurses' Psychological Trauma From The First World War, 1914-1918, Kayla Campana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis examines psychological war trauma nurses experienced during the First World War. Psychological war trauma, or shell shock, as it was commonly known during the war, has largely been identified as a male affliction. In this thesis, I demonstrate that women too, suffered trauma and we can better understand nurses' trauma by applying some of the same analytical techniques that scholars have previously used to examine male combatant trauma. Moreover, I analyze the ways in which contemporary actors, including medical professionals and the public, imagined female trauma, specifically the way nurses' psychological trauma could be understood and articulated. Additionally, …

The Impact Of The United States Army Nurses Corps On The United States Army Fatality Rate In The Mediterranean And European Theater Of Operations During World War Ii, Joshua Benjamin Groomes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

World War II was the most devastating war in human history in terms of loss of life. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, plunged the United States into war. Less than seven thousand military nurses were on active duty at the time of the attack. By the end of the war, there were over fifty-thousand active-duty nurses. The army nurses performed under fire in field and evacuation hospitals, on hospital trains and ships, and as flight nurses on medical evacuation transport aircraft. The skill and dedication of the Army Nurses Corps insured a 95% survival rate …

The Infinite Crisis: How The American Comic Book Has Been Shaped By War, Winston Andrus

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis project argues that war has been the greatest catalyst for the American comic book medium to become a socio-political change agent within western society. Comic books have become one of the most pervasive influences to global popular culture, with superheroes dominating nearly every popular art form. Yet, the academic world has often ignored the comic book medium as a niche market instead of integrated into the broader discussions on cultural production and conflict studies. This paper intends to bridge the gap between what has been classified as comic book studies and the greater academic world to demonstrate the …

The Challenges Of Lesbian Senior Leaders In The Army Branch Of The Department Of Defense, Ella Nunley-Spaights

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of lesbian senior leaders and the types of challenges they experience while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense. A secondary purpose of this study was to identify strategies lesbian senior leaders employ to overcome perceived challenges while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense.

Methodology: This phenomenological study described the lived experiences of seven lesbian senior leaders serving in the Army who were retired from service within the past five years. Convenience and snowball sampling were utilized to identify women who …

Women And World War One: Perspectives On Women's Role In Wwi Literature, Rachel Michelle Brown

All Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the changing gender roles of British women who served as caretakers in World War One. Often overlooked for their contributions, the women who worked on the frontlines of the war defined the changing role of women during and after the war in several crucial ways: 1) the general expectations of women’s gender role, 2) how women perceived and acted in motherhood, and 3) how women constructed and maintained heterosexual, homosocial, and platonic relationships. Using a gender theory approach, this thesis analyzes two semi-autobiographical fictional texts, Evadne Price’s Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War, published in 1930, and …

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History: An Examination Of The Life Of Jacqueline Cochran, Frankie Patino

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines the life of aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran. The analysis starts from her childhood through her aviation career and ultimately concludes with the legacy she left behind. Through this examination various topics will be discussed and analyzed, such as but not limited to, Jackie’s childhood, Jaqueline Cosmetics, aviation, World War II specifically focusing on the WASPS, her late career and her “retirement.” Prominently highlighting her impact in aviation history and her eminent role in changing women’s place within it, this thesis explores the experience of Cochran and argues that she was a vital factor in women’s breakthrough into aviation …

Collegiate Codebreakers: Winthrop, Women, And War, Marlana Mayton

Graduate Theses

During World War II, college-aged women from across the nation filled United States Army and Navy secretive cryptanalysis facilities to help win the war. For many women, colleges facilitated involvement in codebreaking. Through information gathered in oral histories, this thesis primarily explores war related programs at American colleges and the young women that became cryptanalysts. Academic institutions, like Winthrop College, became the nuclei for colligate codebreakers. They acted as early crypt education centers, through the offering of cryptology classes, functioned as recruitment centers, and operated as essential training hubs. While in school, young women were saturated by a climate of …

Battlefield Of Bandages: A Case Study On Sanitation Policy, Medical Reform, And Disease Prevention During The War Of Rebellion, Ashley L. Simpson

MSU Graduate Theses

The American Civil War was a devastating conflict costing over 750,000 lives and millions of dollars in the aftermath. However, the most urgent threat was not musket balls, cannons or grapeshot. Afflictions such as typhoid fever, malaria, smallpox, measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea contracted from crowded, unsanitary camp and hospital conditions were responsible for two-thirds of all Civil War casualties. In April 1861, a group of Union women met at church to organize a relief agency whose goal was to aid the thousands of Union soldiers dying from disease. Armed with enlightenment ideas about medical care and sanitation, the Women's Central …

"Island Of Integration": Desegregation Of The Women's Army Corps At Fort Lee, Virginia, 1948-1954, Meika Downey

Theses and Dissertations

Countless studies exist examining President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9981 mandating racial desegregation of the U.S. armed forces, though all singularly focus on the experiences of male soldiers in the twentieth century. This thesis examines how the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) training center at Fort Lee, Virginia implemented desegregation in 1950 in the midst of the Korean War with relative speed and tolerance. Determined through archival records including official WAC reports, photographs, newspapers, and nine newly conducted racially diverse oral history interviews with WAC veterans, I demonstrate how the Fort Lee training center became a physical and cultural “island …

Arrival Of The Fittest: German Pows In Ontario During The Second World War, Jordyn Bailey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Over 35,000,000 soldiers, sailors and aviators, statistically one in three combatants, were taken prisoner during the Second World War. Some 35,000 of these prisoners were members of the German army, navy and air force, imprisoned in twenty-five internment compounds and 300 small, isolated labour camps across Canada. Once on Canadian soil, German POWs were treated with remarkable hospitality in lieu of their status as the “Nazi” enemy. Canada’s excellent treatment of German POWs was a product of many things: a desire to adhere to the Geneva Convention; concern for the well-being of Canadian and other Allied POWs in German hands; …

Dancing In The Airfield: The Women Of The 46th Taman Guards Aviation Regiment And Their Journey Through War And Womanhood, Yasmine L. Vaughan

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to allow women to join the Air Force. Three regiments were formed, comprised of all female personnel. The three regiments flew over 30,000 combat missions and produced thirty Heroes of the Soviet Union (HSUs) in their three years of service. The 588^th, later renamed the 46^th, was the most successful and well-known of the female regiments, famous for its combat record and stunning achievements.This paper seeks to put into context the unique social constructions that allowed for the recruitment, training, and …

Mary Todd Lincoln: Influence And Impact On The Civil War In The White House, Selena Marie St. Andre

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Long before President Lincoln’s death in 1865, his wife, Mary Lincoln, was regarded as an insane woman with a terrible spending problem and little regard for the Civil War. Mrs. Lincoln, in fact, was essential to Lincoln’s successful presidency and ability to keep the Union together. This thesis seeks to understand Mary in a different light than history has. As a young girl, Mary strongly believed that she was destined for greatness and would have a powerful husband beside her. By further understanding her unbound ambitions, her love of the finer things in life, and the good works that she …

The Experiences And Contributions Of Women Following The British Army During The Seven Years’ War, James Dennison

Major Papers

For much of history women followed with European armies on campaign. They filled auxiliary roles for the army and supported their men. Though history has often overlooked them, they are consistently present in primary material. Camp women during the Seven Years’ War (1754 to 1763) lived a hard life, much like soldiers. Yet despite attempts by officers to limit their numbers, as well as the difficult and dangerous living conditions, women continued to follow the army and proved to be both helpful and a hindrance to military officials. This paper examines the experiences of these women and in doing so …

In The Field The Women Saved The Crop: The Women’S Land Army Of World War Ii, Denna M. Clymer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Women’s Land Army brought together rural and urban sectors of the United States in a climate of national and regional crisis. By the time the country was cast into war, the agricultural sector was already caught in a downward economic spiral that drove away laborers. With demand falling, and farms propped up only by experiments in subsidy and parity, when military and industrial jobs emerged in urban areas, farm laborers became scarce. At the same time the war created jobs for men outside of the agricultural sector, farm prices recovered and demand soared, forcing farmers to look to women …

Experiences Of Soviet Women Combatants During World War Ii, Michelle De Jesus Reyes

History Theses

World War II was arguably the most heroic event in the history of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), so much that it was known as the “Great Patriotic War.” Tens of millions of Russians were killed during the large scale conflict against their “fascist foes.” Still, the large population of the USSR were moved to action primarily by mass propaganda distributed by the Communist Party leaders. Women played a large role during the war, not just in the factories on the home front or as partisans, but as combat nurses and snipers as well. Since the losses …

Queering The Wac: The World War Ii Military Experience Of Queer Women, Catherine S. Cauley

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The demands of WWII mobilization led to the creation of the first standing women's army in the US known as the Women's Army Corps (WAC). An unintended consequence of this was that the WAC provided queer women with an environment with which to explore their gender and sexuality while also giving them the cover of respectability and service that protected them from harsh societal repercussions. They could eschew family for their military careers. They could wear masculine clothing, exhibit a masculine demeanor, and engage in a homosocial environment without being seen as subversive to the American way of life. Quite …

Silenced Voices: Sexual Violence During And After World War Ii, Cassidy L. Chiasson

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the different types of sexual violence present during and immediately after World War II and focuses specifically on the European Theater of the war. Memoirs, journals and diaries were used as primary sources. This research focuses on the overlapping themes of sexual violence in the form of forcible rape and sexual violence as a means of protection and survival. The goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive view of the complexity surrounding many situations in which sexual violence occurred. It also aims to partially fill the gap in historical literature on this topic, and bring …

Foreign Affairs: Policy, Culture, And The Making Of Love And War In Vietnam, Amanda C. Boczar

Theses and Dissertations--History

Foreign Affairs: Policy, Culture, and the Making of Love and War in Vietnam investigates the interplay between war and society leading to and during the Vietnam War. This project intertwines histories of foreign relations, popular culture, and gender and sexuality as lenses for understanding international power relations during the global Cold War more broadly. By examining sexual encounters between American service members and Vietnamese civilian women, this dissertation argues that relationships ranging from prostitution to dating, marriage, and rape played a significant role in the diplomacy, logistics, and international reception of the war. American disregard for South Vietnamese morality laws …

Broken Promises: Rape, Race, And The Union Army, Kellie J. Hedgers

All Master's Theses

Through the use of Union courts-martial records, this paper will examine the ways in which black women who had been assaulted by white men were denied justice in military courts. Although the Union Army was often perceived of as an army representing freedom and higher moral purpose, the court martial records reveal a darker side. They reveal that sometimes black women found no safety behind Union lines; rather, they found themselves victims of sexual violence by white men and had little recourse to justice. Although outwardly the Union Army was devoted to abolishing slavery, the inner workings of its courts …

Mass Rape In Foča: The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia Vs. Dragoljub Kunarac, Mark William Iverson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Bosnian war witnessed the organized expulsion of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian and Bosnian Serb military forces from 1992 until 1995. As a tactic aimed at creating mono-ethnic towns from multicultural populations, rape was perpetrated against all women, but particularly Muslim women, as part of a larger plan to terrorize populations into permanently abandoning their homes. The Muslims of Foča, a township close to the border with Montenegro, were one of the first multiethnic populations to be attacked and terrorized by Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovač, and Zoran Vuković were three Bosnian Serb soldiers, among thousands, …

The British Women’S Land Army: Gender, Identity, And Landscapes, Hilary M.K. Anderson

Masters Theses

The land girls who comprised the Women’s Land Army in Great Britain during the Second World War challenged cultural assumptions regarding gender and femininity. Through their work in agriculture, social anxieties were provoked regarding proper notions of femininity and separate spheres, which left these women in conflicting positions as they carved a spot for themselves in a war torn society. In order to carry out their work in the Women’s Land Army, land girls operated at the convergence of private and public spheres in a conjoined space. Living and operating in this conjoined space enabled them to blur the ideological …

The Gendered Geography Of War: Confederate Women As Camp Followers, Rachael L. Ryen

Master's Theses

The American Civil War is often framed as exclusively masculine, consisting of soldiers, god-like generals, and battle; a sphere where women simply did not enter or coexist. This perception is largely due to the mobilization of approximately six million men, coupled with the Victorian era which did not permit women to engage in the public sphere. Women are given their place however, but it is more narrowly defined as home front assistance. Even as women transitioned from passive receivers to active participants, their efforts rarely defied gender norms. This thesis looks at Confederate female camp followers who appeared to defy …

Recruiting A Lady: The Depiction Of The Women's Army Corps, Amanda Rutherford

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The Women's Army Corps [WAC] proves to be an interesting topic for reading and analysis for students of the Army in WWII. One can see a good deal of patriotism in the examination of how WAC was formed and 'how women were recruited. Patriotism greatlyfueled all of the propaganda sun-ounding the Women's Army Corps. Patriotism was also at the root of most of the scholarship on the Women's Army Corps, thus it is at the heart of theArmy sanctioned story of the WAC. This Army sanctioned story is cemented most in Mattie E. Treadwell's The Women's Army Corps, which was …