Women of the Homefront: World War II Recollections of 55 Americans

by Pauline E. Parker (editor)

Lois A. Ferguson was a training teacher for college graduates at a Japanese relocation center in California. Her husband set up a junior college and night school program. Their efforts were to help relieve the injustices done to fellow citizens. Kay Watson's husband fought in Burma while Kay worked at one of the sites of a secret government project known as the Manhattan Project; she later learned that she might have played a small part in the plan to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Mary L. Appling was a librarian in a California high school when she met Hugh Appling, a serviceman just returned from the war; together, they worked in Foreign Service for the United States for nearly thirty years, a direction affected by their actions during World War II. The recollections of these three women and 52 others are edited and presented by Pauline Parker, who also endured the war. Many women had life changing experiences during this turbulent time--Parker has gathered the personal stories of such women as Marines and government workers as well as single mothers whose husbands had gone off to fight.

Genres: World War II, History, Nonfiction

310 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2002

Reviews

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

55 American women from all walks of life share their WW II homefront stories. I enjoyed reading their first person accounts. This is going on the shelves in my classroom!

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you gather 55 essays on any subject, a certain proportion of them are bound to be duds. Thankfully this collection keeps that percentage to a minimum. I was enthralled by the stories these women told - most of them weren't exciting or the stuff of legend, but they were real women that I could identify. I also like that Ms. Parker broadly defined "Americans" - there are essays by women who emigrated to the States after the war, and so readers get to see a touch of the European and Pacific experience as well.

[Lucy Bolduc · Rating 5 out of 5]

My great grandmother, Adelaide Hawkins, is in this book. She was a badass.

[Keri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great compilation of stories from all different sides and aspects of the war. These stories featured the topics and events that the generations after the war didn't experience and therefore couldn't really understand--it made those events very real for me to see them told by real-life women. Going to recommend this to one of my professors who loves reading about women on the homefront.