Synopses & Reviews
I would have climbed up a mountain to get on the list [to serve overseas]. We were going to do our duty. Despite all the bad things that happened, America was our home. This is where I was born. It was where my mother and father were. There was a feeling of wanting to do your part.
--Gladys Carter, member of the 6888th
To Serve My Country, to Serve my Race is the story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit composed of African-American women to serve overseas.
While African-American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African-American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. Under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the black press, and even President Roosevelt, the U.S. War Department was forced to deploy African-American women to the European theater in 1945.
African-American women, having succeeded, through their own activism and political ties, in their quest to shape their own lives, answered the call from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel Williams, a cook in the 6888th who signed up for the Army to escape the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education, and Margaret Barnes Jones, a public relations officer of the 6888th, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system.
Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these African-American women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispell bigoted preconceptions about their abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant in the 6888th, joined because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full- fledged citizens."
Filled with compelling personal testimony based on extensive interviews, To Serve My Country is the first book to document the lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they, in turn, transformed the U.S. military forever.
Review
"Moore has made an incredible discovery. This book will be a major contribution to military studies, African American studies, and women's studies."
"Drawing on the testimony of former members of the unit, Moore recounts its formation, training and service in the European theater of operations in 1945-46, highlighting the discrimination women faced because of their race and gender. . . . An important contribution to African American and gender studies . . . "
"A rich, comprehensive study."
"This work fills the void that has been created by scholars of military institutions. It represents an original analysis of the experience of women of African descent who served their country in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. Her robust analysis of their feelings, motivations and experience within the military provides the reader with a moving tale of accomplishments of black women during a critical point in the history of the country. Professor Moore's separation of race and gender effects in the book is excellent, and brings out the fact that women of African descent must be seen in their own historical light if one is to understand their unique history. This book makes a significant contribution to military sociology, gender studies, American studies, and race and ethnic relations."
"A fascinating account of black women in the armed forces in World War II. We are indebted to Brenda Moore for recording this story while these women are still with us. Moore gives powerful new insights for African American studies, gender studies, and military history."
Review
"Drawing on the testimony of former members of the unit, Moore recounts its formation, training and service in the European theater of operations in 1945-46, highlighting the discrimination women faced because of their race and gender. . . . An important contribution to African American and gender studies . . . " - Publishers Weekly
Review
"A rich, comprehensive study." - Philadelphia New Observer
Review
"A fascinating account of black women in the armed forces in World War II. We are indebted to Brenda Moore for recording this story while these women are still with us. Moore gives powerful new insights for African American studies, gender studies, and military history." - Charles Moskos, Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Review
"[Piepmeier is] one of third-wave feminism's astute voices... As the wealth of examples she brings to her argument reveals, the author has done careful research on the significance of this medium and its use as a tool for making the voices of third-wave feminists heard. The study is important in that it affirms the continuity and relevance of feminism and does so in a way that delights as well as informs... Summing Up: Essential."-CHOICE,
Review
"In , author Alison Piepmeier defends the grrrl ethos with a scholarly take that points to the movement as a key part of feminist history; one that enabled women to gain more presence in a male-dominated world, albeit through flimsy, phantasmagorical photocopies passed around in the 1990s. Here Piepmeier brings forth a local study that, whether you agree with it or not, steadfastly lodges zine culture into the feminist archive."-Broken Pencil,
Review
“Piepmeiers careful study of the zine movement in girl culture is a powerful and convincing articulation of the ways womens and girls activism has developed, and the creative forms it has taken.”
-Leslie Heywood,editor of The Womens Movement Today
Review
“Before you could Tweet your every thought to the world, young women cut, pasted, Xeroxed, and traded their own handmade magazines through the mail. In fact, the gorgeously glossy mag youre holding in your hands right now started off as a zine. Girl Zines analyzes the beginning of the movement and its revolution grrrl style roots, as well as the way zinesters used the medium to explore race, sexuality, and identity.”
-Bust Magazine,
Review
“Overall, [Piepmeiers] analysis about the political role that grrrl zines played is dead on. They were central to the evolution of my own feminist development in college in the early 1990s, speaking directly to my feelings of exclusion, disgust with pop culture, and surliness about the lingering sexism that second-wave feminism had failed to abolish.”
-The American Prospect,
Synopsis
The story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit of African American women to serve overseas
While African American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. However, under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the Black press, and even President Roosevelt, the US War Department was forced to deploy African American women to the European theater in 1945.
African American women answered the call to serve from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel Williams, a cook in the unit who signed up for the Army to escape the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education, and Margaret Barnes Jones, the unit's public relations officer, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system.
Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispel bigoted preconceptions about their abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant, joined because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full- fledged citizens."
Filled with compelling personal stories based on extensive interviews, To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race is the first book to document the lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they, in turn, transformed the US military forever.
Synopsis
With names like
The East Village Inky,
Mend My Dress,
Dear Stepdad, and
I'm So Fucking Beautiful, zines created by girls and women over the past two decades make feminisms third wave visible. These messy, photocopied do-it-yourself documents cover every imaginable subject matter and are loaded with handwriting, collage art, stickers, and glitter. Though they all reflect the personal style of the creators, they are also sites for constructing narratives, identities, and communities.
Girl Zines is the first book-length exploration of this exciting movement. Alison Piepmeier argues that these quirky, personalized booklets are tangible examples of the ways that girls and women ‘do feminism today. The idiosyncratic, surprising, and savvy arguments and issues showcased in the forty-six images reproduced in the book provide a complex window into feminisms future, where zinesters persistently and stubbornly carve out new spaces for what it means to be a revolutionary and a girl. Girl Zines takes zines seriously, asking what they can tell us about the inner lives of girls and women over the last twenty years.
About the Author
Alison Piepmeier directs the Womens and Gender Studies Program at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, where she is associate professor of English. She is the co-editor of Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the Twenty-First Century and author of Out in Public: Configurations of Women's Bodies in Nineteenth-Century America.
Table of Contents
A changing military structure -- Fight our battles and claim our victories -- Just American soldiers going to do a job -- Serving in the European theater of operations, January 1945-March 1946 -- Life after military service -- Cohesion, conflict, and phenomenology.