For a wide variety of social reasons, few women were attracted to military service during the Korean War era. In 1951, the Department of Defense (DOD) created the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services to help the armed services recruit women. DOD carefully selected a wide-ranging and diverse group of women to sit on the committee. Hailing from all areas of the country, they ranged from spinsters and divorcees to mothers and grandmothers and from educators and clubwomen to retailers and actresses. They did, however, have one important characteristic in common—each had devoted a large portion of her life to volunteer work and public service. This was not coincidental. In making its selections, DOD was deliberately telling young women of the 1950s that volunteerism and public service were the duty of every citizen and that such service was compatible with every life goal.
Aileen S. Kraditor introduced the phrase “cult of domesticity” in her introduction to Up from the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American Feminism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968).
2.
The Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting women from serving on juries was unconstitutional in 1975.
3.
David Segal, Recruiting for Uncle Sam: Citizenship and Military Manpower Policy (University Press of Kansas, 1989).
4.
Ruth Edmonds Hill, ed., The Black Women Oral History Project, vol. 5 (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1991), 119.
5.
Jeanne M. Holm, major general, U.S. Air Force (ret.), Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution, rev. ed. (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1992), 151.
6.
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America 1945-1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowtiz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 236.
7.
Jacqueline McGlade, Monmouth University, “Woman in Charge: Anna Rosenberg and the Korean War” (Paper delivered at the Korean War Conference, Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, University of Pittsburg, PA, June 2000).
8.
During World War II, the U.S. government hired many experts in a variety of fields as consultants at a token salary of “a dollar a year.” These academics, scientists, and specialists were essentially volunteering their skills and expertise for free out of the spirit of patriotism and the desire to do their part for the war.
9.
and “Miss Gibbons Joins UNRA,”New York Times, April20,1945,14.
10.
List of DACOWITS Members, 1951, DACOWITS Office, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Pentagon, Women’s Memorial Archives, Arlington, VA.
11.
and “To Lead Apparel Industry in Red Cross Drive in City,”New York Times, January 17, 1949, 4.
12.
“5th Avenue Shops Set to Help War Fund,”New York Times, November 6, 1943, 8.
13.
Sara E. Southall, Industry’s Unfinished Business: Achieving Sound Industrial Relations and Fair Employment (New York: Harper, 1950), xv-xviii.
14.
Lena Ebeling File, Sherwin-Williams Company Archives and Historical Collection, WomenHistorians of Greater Cleveland Archive Project, Case Western Reserve University Library, http://www.cwru.edu/UL/WHGC/pages/SherwinWilliams.html (accessed August 12, 2004).
15.
Mary Isabel Barber File, Local History Department, Willard Library, Battle Creek, Michigan; Who’s Who of American Women, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Marquis, 1962).
16.
Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 385-386.
17.
Barbara Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 122.
18.
and Clymer and Erlich, Modern American Career Women, 1-11.
19.
Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women, 122.
20.
“Millicent McIntosh—Former President of Barnard College—Dies at 102; Her Views on Work and Family Were an Inspiration to Generations of Students,”Barnard Campus News, January 4, 2001.
21.
Chafe, The American Woman, 107.
22.
Who’s Who, 1st ed.
23.
Lynn White Jr., Educating Our Daughters: A Challenge to the Colleges (New York: Harpers, 1950), 52.
24.
William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 126.
25.
and “To Lead Apparel Industry,”4.
26.
Ibid.
27.
India Edwards, Pulling No Punches: Memoirs of a Woman in Politics (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1977), 149.
28.
Who’s Who, 1st ed.
29.
both articles in Mrs. Dwight Davis File, Red Cross Archives, Arlington, VA.
30.
Anne Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, “Mrs. Secretary,” in Women in Texas: Their Lives, Their Experiences, Their Accomplishments (Burnet, TX: Eakin Press, 1982), 249-258.
