To find content on women, the original content of the textbook must be understood. Some OER content includes information on women and may not need much added in this regard. Others are more traditional and will require research to determine what is needed. There are two main difficulties in finding the right material. Firstly, the license for this material also needs to be Open, so it needs a CC license or to be in the public domain. For resources that are on the web, but a license cannot be determined, a link can be included, but of course this resource may not always be there. The other issue is the length and depth of the resource to be added. A resource that is so in depth as to be as long or longer than the chapter being enhanced is not useful. A resource that is too basic may not be helpful either.
Women on the Homefront are often mentioned in textbooks. However, women participated in many ways in WWII. The article pasted below is on the women code breakers in WWII. This is a basic summary, but if someone had interest, they could find more on the topic. Here is a link to the article. It is created by the Library of Congress, so it is fine to add to a textbook.
Sharpened Pencils and Sharper Minds: World War II Women Code Breakers
The following is the first post in a six-part series highlighting women veterans’ collections from the Veterans History Project (VHP) archive in recognition of Women’s History Month.
Imagine coming across this job announcement today: Candidates must be highly skilled in math and linguistics, willing to relocate and able to keep a secret to the death. Only college age women with no imminent wedding plans need apply.
I’m not sure if that’s exactly how World War II-era government recruiters worded their advertisements for participants in a top secret cryptography program, but those were certainly among the requirements for selectees. Based on that list, I probably would not have been a good fit. Days filled with both math and secrets would have been way too much for me to bear.
Photograph of a WAVE decoding unit stationed at the Naval Communications Command Annex, Washington, DC 1945. Ruth Koczela Collection, Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, AFC2001/001/91889.
In 1942, reeling from Japan’s devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in desperate need of workers to serve as code breakers in the newly ramped up war effort. Most of the eligible men were either already on active duty in the armed forces, or preparing to be. Thankfully, there were hundreds of women who were good fits for this top secret program who enthusiastically answered the call to duty. Otherwise, the United States very well may have lost World War II.
Frances Scott (nee Lynd) was one of those women. In her audio-recorded VHP interview, Scott shares that when she and several of her friends were seniors in college, they were “approached by a Navy man” who wanted them to take a secret course in cryptology. They agreed, and learned their first lesson right away.
When you have a secret, you don’t go around telling people that you have a secret. You make up a good story, and you pass off your story, and you don’t let anyone know you’re doing anything that’s secret.
They found the course to be both fun and challenging, much like the crossword puzzles and cryptograms they enjoyed doing in the newspapers. After graduation, Scott and her friends were sworn into the Navy as ensigns and sent to boot camp for the next two months. Scott said she loved most everything about it—including the food, particularly the breakfasts. Not so much the fit of the uniforms, or the fact that women were required to cut their hair so that it was well above their uniform collar. There was one policy she mentioned that gave me pause. So much so that I had to rewind and listen to her say it again.
You weren’t allowed to say that you had cramps from menstruation, because the Navy did not give you any kind of dispensation for a monthly period. You were supposed to be women who didn’t have problems in that direction.
Problems in that direction. Wow.
The women’s training involved lots of memorization of seemingly insignificant details—a critical skill that would prove vital in Scott’s work when she was eventually sent to the Navy’s Communication Annex in Washington, DC to break Japanese and German codes. Her adventures in DC also included some pretty awkward interactions with a nosey neighbor as well as a couple of African American men who were afraid she might unintentionally get them lynched.
With war looming, U.S. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill for the creation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in May 1941. Having been a witness to the status of women in World War I, Rogers vowed that if American women served in support of the Army, they would do so with all the rights and benefits afforded to Soldiers.
Spurred on by the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Congress approved the creation of WAAC on May 14, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law on May 15, and on May 16, Oveta Culp Hobby was sworn in as the first director. WAAC was established "for the purpose of making available to the national defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of women of the nation."
Below are two photographs, one of a WAAC recruiting poster and one of the WAAC working on phone lines.
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