03978cam a2200445 i 4500 1164586421 TxAuBib 20170612120000.0 160816s2017||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2016038111 9780674971479 hard cover; alkaline paper 0674971477 hard cover; alkaline paper (OCoLC)959649181 MH/DLC eng rda HLS DLC YDX OCLCF OCLCO BDX OCL YDX OCLCO OCLCQ IK2 JAI TxAuBib rda Cobbs Hoffman, Elizabeth, author. The Hello Girls : America's first women soldiers / Elizabeth Cobbs. America's first women soldiers. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017. ©2017. 370 pages, 14 unnumbered pages of plates ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-354) and index. America's last citizens -- Neutrality defeated, and the telephone in war and peace -- Looking for soldiers and finding women -- We're going over: recruiting the Hello Girls -- Pack your kit: selection and training -- Wilson adopts suffrage and the Signal Corps embarks -- Americans find their way, over there -- Better late than never: the battle for the Marne -- Wilson fights for a mandate at home -- Together in the crisis of Meuse-Argonne -- Peace without victory medal -- Soldiering forward in the twentieth century. "In World War I, telephones linked commanding generals with soldiers in muddy trenches. A woman in uniform connected almost every one of their calls, speeding the orders that won the war. Like other soldiers, the "Hello Girls" swore the Army oath and stayed for the duration. A few were graduates of elite colleges. Most were ordinary, enterprising young women motivated by patriotism and adventure, eager to test their mettle and save the world. The first contingent arrived in France just as the German Army trained "Big Bertha" on Paris, bombarding the frightened city as the new women of the U.S. Army struggled through unlit streets to find their billets. A handful followed General Pershing to the gates of Verdun and the battlefields of Meuse-Argonne. When the switchboard operators sailed home a year later, the Army dismissed them without veterans' benefits or victory medals. The women commenced a sixty-year fight that a handful of survivors carried to triumph in 1979. This book shows how technological developments encouraged an unusual band to volunteer for military service at the precise moment that feminists back home championed a federal suffrage amendment. The same desire to participate fully in the life of their country animated both groups, and both struggled after 1920 to reap the rewards of victory. Their experiences illuminate ways in which sex-role change was embraced and resisted throughout the twentieth century, and the ways that men and women struggled together for gender justice."--Provided by publisher. 20170612. United States Army Signal Corps History 20th century. United States Army Women History. World War, 1914-1918 Communications. World War, 1914-1918 Participation, Female. World War, 1914-1918 Regimental histories United States. Telephone operators United States History 20th century. Women soldiers United States History 20th century. Women soldiers Legal status, laws, etc United States. Women veterans United States History 20th century. Sex discrimination against women United States History 20th century. Women Suffrage United States History 20th century. TXKIP