But even as the Arlington women were being educated and courted, they were receiving a subtle message that their very involvement in the war effort—these apartments they were renting together, the furniture they were buying, the meals they were cooking, their newfound independence—was creating troubling social changes. A talk by Charles Taft, titled “America at War,” centered on this idea. Taft, son of the late president William Howard Taft, now served as director of the Office of Community War Services, a new agency created to cope with the disruptions the Second World War was tearing in
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