The first work examined is an anthology collected by Maureen Honey called Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II, which include multiple types of writing on the experiences of African-American women throughout the Second World War. The sources and included writings are drawn mostly from major African-American periodicals. The compilation is a useful resource for historians, though a clear bias against the federal politics for their discriminatory actions against these writers, both for their race and gender, is nevertheless inherent in much of the texts. Still, Bitter Fruit includes informative analysis of African-American women’s contributions in World War II, albeit the editor, Honey would have benefited from expanding on the …show more content…
Morehouse, obviously focuses on the same sub-topic as Maureen Honey did in the previous mentioned collection, though Morehouse expands to examine both African-American women and men. The author personally obtains oral histories from those who served during the Second World War, as well as using the thoroughly examined records that were available for public consumption. Using the cultural historical approach, the monograph details the environmental and social experiences the men and women faced, most especially the discrimination they endured to assist their country that simultaneously demoralized and emboldened them to retaliation. The book is a great gain to the historical community for its expansive research, despite any bias that is naturally found in such a work about a sensitive topic as …show more content…
The best approach would most definitely be a mixture of domestic and warfront experiences, alongside a significant inclusion of the diverse races and ethnicity of American women who lived through the war. Nevertheless, that much information cannot compose a single monographic work, and so what would likely be the most credible is the work written by Rachel Walter Goossen’s book, entitled Women against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender on the American Home Front, 1941-1947; as despite its focus on a singular subset of American women’s experiences, the publication appears to be the most credible of those presented. It clearly demonstrates its argument clearly, and does not hesitate to expand on details in an easily understood way. However, Goossen’s work is not the most divergent in terms of discussion of new ideas and chronicles. The work that does this most is the article “Japanese American Women During World War II" by Valerie Matsumoto, which examines the lives of Japanese-American women who were imprisoned throughout the duration of the war, unlike many other American citizens, simply die to their race. This work brings new insight not only to the topic in focus, but into race-relations that transformed throughout he 20th century in American
*Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. "African American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race" in Feminism and History, ed. Joan Wallach Scott (NY: Oxford University Press, 1996), 201.
Within Megan H. Mackenzie’s essay, “Let Women Fight” she points out many facts about women serving in the U.S. military. She emphasizes the three central arguments that people have brought up about women fighting in the military. The arguments she states are that women cannot meet the physical requirements necessary to fight, they simply don’t belong in combat, and that their inclusion in fighting units would disrupt those units’ cohesion and battle readiness. The 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act built a permanent corps of women in all the military departments, which was a big step forward at that time. Although there were many restrictions that were put on women, an increase of women in the U.S. armed forces happened during
“There was much more to women’s work during World War Two than make, do, and mend. Women built tanks, worked with rescue teams, and operated behind enemy lines” (Carol Harris). Have you ever thought that women could have such an important role during a war? In 1939 to 1945 for many women, World War II brought not only sacrifices, but also a new style of life including more jobs, opportunities and the development of new skills. They were considered as America’s “secret weapon” by the government. Women allowed getting over every challenge that was imposed by a devastating war. It is necessary to recognize that women during this period brought a legacy that produced major changes in social norms and work in America.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
Women in the US Military - Civil War Era. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.
In the beginning of the book Hunter proceeded to tell us about the history of African-American women in a broader narrative of political and economic life in Atlanta. Her first chapter highlights the agency of Civil War era urban slaves who actively resisted the terms of their labor and thus hastened
The Learning Center. Black Women, World War I, and Washington, D.C. Internet: http://www.erols.com/tdpedu/lectures/bkwomww1.htm. Acce ssed 11/22/98.
In Rights to Identity: An Analysis of Trethewey’s “What is Evidence,”“After your Death,” and “June 1863” in Natasha Trethewey’s “ Native Guard” I made the connection between Trethewey’s effort to write the untold history of African American soldiers to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Danger of a Single Story TED Talk. Adichie states, “All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story (12:57)”. The stories that ‘formed
The novel, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, tells her family’s true story of how they struggled to not only survive, but thrive in forced detention during World War II. She was seven years old when the war started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. Her life dramatically changed when her and her family were taken from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, they had to adjust to their new life living behind barbed wire. Obviously, as a young child, Jeanne did not fully understand why they had to move, and she was not fully aware of the events happening outside the camp. However, in the beginning, every Japanese American had questions. They wondered why they had to leave. Now, as an adult, she recounts the three years she spent at Manzanar and shares how her family attempted to survive. The conflict of ethnicities affected Jeanne and her family’s life to a great extent.
"From Home Front to Front Line." Women in War. Ed. Cecilia Lee and Paul Edward Strong. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. The Churchill Centre. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
In Monica Sone’s memoir, “Nisei Daughter”, her experience in the camps ran by the United States during World War II alters her perception of the U.S, causing her to embrace her Japanese roots. In 1941 Japans attack on the U.S creates a discriminatory environment for Japanese’s Americans. In the time of horror, Sone finds herself relating more to her Japanese heritage. The structure of the memoir focus mainly on Sone’s life before World War II, as a Nisei Japanese living the American dream. In the beginning chapters, Sone lives a typical American life. However, the last portion of the memoir gives an insight to the drastic change caused by Pearl Harbor. This forces Sone to identity as a Japanese, and later leads her to embracement of her Japanese
"Yamamoto does reveal through her fiction the sorry plight of many female immigrants caught in unhappy marriages. What made the lives of these Issei women especially bleak was that unlike Black women, for example, who in similar situations often turned to one another for support, rural Issei women were not only separated by the Pacific from their mothers and grandmothers, but often cut off from one another as well. Having to take care of children and to work alongside their husbands on isolated farms, they had little time and opportunity to cultivate friendships with other women. The only members of the same sex to whom they could embosom their thoughts were their own daughters, who all too often had engrossing problems of their own.
In this semester, we have read several books arguing that wars brought women the opportunity to enter the presumed men’s spaces such as entering military industry to replace the drafted male soldiers. However, was the gain permanent? From Home/Front edited by Hagemann and Schüler-Springorum, we learned that the postwar German authorities desperately attempted to restore the status quo ante in gender relations. Ruth Milkman’s social history Gender at Work presented a similar scenario faced by American female workers in their workplace during and after the WWII.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.